


blood, water & scotch

by TaFuilLiom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Season 4 AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:09:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: S4 AU: After hunting Cadmus in Europe for a month, Alex returns to National City and accepts her promotion to become director of the DEO. With Maggie continuing the search, and Kara uncovering a huge story about an incident involving the organisation, Alex struggles to keep a balance between the professional and the personal.





	1. 4x01

**Author's Note:**

> You can read this for context (3x23): https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098104/chapters/33924618
> 
> Please enjoy...

**_National City_ **

She skimmed the final paragraph, drew a firm red line through the last sentence and then capped her pen in satisfaction. The clock on the wall said 6:01, her workload was done, and she was ready to go home.

Kara sat back, stretching her arms above her head and contemplating the clock high on the wall of her office. Eliza’s flight didn’t get in until 8, after which they had agreed to meet J’onn for a drink.

She stood, closing down the lid of her laptop and shuffling the papers she was reviewing back into her briefcase, her heart heavy as she realised that for the first time that she could recall, she was dreading the visit from her adoptive mother. Packing away her laptop and smoothing down her ponytail, Kara did one last sweep of the office before heading for the door.

It was J’onn’s final days with the DEO, and while Kara was pleased for what this could mean for Alex, the truth was that she wished none of this was happening at all. Change had come and gone, rattling them all around like dice in a fist, not caring what the consequences were when they rolled to a stop. They just had to deal with the numbers they were given.

She strolled along the corridor into the CatCo bullpen, politely bidding some of her colleagues a good night, her mood sinking with each step. Their transitional CEO after Lena was even less engaged than she had been, even when she disappeared from the workplace to help Sam try to overcome Reign. With Lena then severing ties with her, James dealing with his own dilemma, Winn and J’onn leaving and Alex on a different continent, Kara was isolated and, if she was honest, lonely.  

She passed the door of Snapper’s office, but was drawn back at a call of her name.

“Danvers?”

Kara popped back into the doorway. “Yes?”

“Forgot to tell you,” he said, more to the laptop in front of him. “You’re getting a mini-me on Monday. She’ll be here around 11am.”

Stunned, Kara took a moment to gather her wits before replying. “You mean, I’m getting a-?”

“Yeah. New hire. You need to show her the ropes, so to speak.” He continued to tap at his keyboard, his attention on the words he wrote rather than the woman in the doorway. “She’s good. Fresh blood might liven this place up a little after all the  _mismanagement_.”

Snapper spat the word so venomously, that it was impossible not to know exactly what he was referring to.

Kara adjusted her glasses. “I’m sorry, what-?”

“I’ll brief you at 9 on Monday. Enjoy your weekend,” he said, waving her away, disinterested.

She scurried the rest of the way to the elevator, excitement cutting through the heaviness that had pressed on her.

_Me, a mentor_ , she thought.

The minute her foot stepped out into the lobby, Kara had her phone in her hand. She practically jumped around as she waited for the reception to readjust after the elevator ride, and then immediately dialled Alex.

_“Mmm...hello?”_

“Alex! Hey, I just got some news,” she blurted, hopping from foot to foot. “I just talked to Snapper and he said-”

_“Kara…”_

“-that there’s a new hire starting on Monday and guess what-?”

_“Hey, uh, Kara-”_

“He wants me to mentor them! Me, a mentor!”

_“Kara! What time is it there?”_

“6. I’m just leaving work.”

_“Which makes it what time in Madrid…?”_

“Which-” She sagged slightly in realisation. “Oh, Alex, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

_“S’fine.”_ Kara heard her shuffling around, the click of a light going on.  _“It’s good to hear you so excited about something.”_

“Yeah.” That loneliness returned, sinking her mood like an anvil on an old cartoon, her respite from it only temporary. “Anyway, I should-”

A muffled voice spoke on the line, prompting Alex to rasp a soft;  _“It’s okay, go back to sleep.”_

When they were kids, Kara was impressed at how Alex would finish an apple and chuck the core into the trash with an expert, practised aim. One day, she felt the courage to try herself, underestimating her strength. Not only did she miss the trash, the core bounded off the lid of the bin and tipped the garbage all over the kitchen floor, leaving a stinking, grungy mess that Alex refused to help clean up.

Kara felt like that now; so cheerful to share, so red-faced at the miss. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

_“Really, it’s fine.”_

Kara rocked back on the balls of her feet, turning to face the large canvas that covered one wall of the CatCo lobby. Awkwardness seeped into her bones, and she struggled with a weak joke in response. “So, you got seduced by a local.”

Alex chuckled lightly.  _“When in Europe, right?”_

There was something off about the answer, but Kara suspected that she was probably just embarrassed. Frankly, she was surprised that Alex would even have another one night stand, after how it had affected her last time. Maybe this was a good sign; maybe she was finally ready to heal and move on.

“Good for you,” Kara said honestly, batting the briefcase against her knee. “I’m gonna go. Let you sleep a little longer.” Despite her slight discomfort, she smiled at her shoes, adding, “Or not, since I seemed to have woken up your European romance…”

_“Goodbye, Kara,”_ Alex replied firmly, amusement in her voice.

Kara had the urge to tell Alex that she missed her, and would miss her at dinner the following night, but she hung up before she got the chance.

Disappointment leaking into the ventricles of her heart, making her feel cold inside, she slid her phone back into her pocket, gripped her briefcase, and walked out of the lobby.

~

**_4 miles south of Matersa, Spain_ **

Her boots crunched against the rocky ground, legs burning with exertion from the steep climb that they had been battling with for the last half hour. Alex adjusted the cap on her head, grimacing at the damp sweat of her forehead.

“We’ve been hiking for hours,” she complained, wrangling her water bottle from the side of her rucksack. She unscrewed the lid, took a long gulp, and then put it back, keeping the steady pace the whole time.

Maggie, always a few steps ahead, scoffed and replied, “You say that like you aren’t in peak physical condition.”

Alex groaned as she sidestepped a thorny bushel. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Thought you were a Californian? Can’t stand the heat?” Maggie threw back, glancing over her shoulder and snickering as Alex swiped her damp brow. “I knew a good hike would be the ruin of you, Danvers. You’re all muscle and no endurance.”

“I think you know I have plenty of endurance,” Alex said under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.” That particular conversation would have to be touched on another time, or even better, never at all. Switching tracks, she asked, “Are we almost there?”

“Patience,” Maggie said smugly.

In reality, Alex didn’t have a whole lot of patience left. All of this time galavanting across a foreign continent had just led them to one defunct location after another. Cadmus had been running rings around them, and she was no closer to finding her father than she was when she boarded the plane to D.C.

Another minute or so and they reached the summit of the incline, and then Alex was in awe. Sprawled out in the flatland below them were dozens upon dozens of solar panels, stretching out across the valley.

“Renewable energy, huh?” she quipped.

“It’s the future.” Maggie pointed at the tower in the centre of the solar field, which was about twenty stories tall. It stood high above the panels, an intimidating figure, as if it were omnipotent towards the surrounding structures. “That’s where we’ve gotta get into.”

She looked over her shoulder, flashing a toothy grin. Then, she began her descent into the valley. “Try not to get blinded by the panels.”

Alex took in the landscape in one broad view, and then focused on the panels individually. Searching for a reference point in the trees at the edge of the collective, she estimated that they were each were over twelve foot tall.

“God, look at those things.” She started down the hill after Maggie. “How much energy-”

“You know I love it when you nerd out, Danvers,” Maggie interrupted. “But there’ll be time for that later.”

Her eyes on the tower, Alex wondered if this would be another dead end in their search. Fixing the peak of her cap, she trained her attention on her feet. “You love it when I nerd out, huh?”

“Let’s…” Maggie tightened the straps on her rucksack, quickening her pace. “Talk about that later, too.”

“What  _do_ you wanna talk about instead?”

Alex couldn’t help the slight sarcastic edge. After three and a half weeks, she was irritated at the game of push and pull that Maggie was playing. She was juggling enough pressure with every false lead they followed without the added personal conflict they had engaged in.

“Well, how do you feel about going home to take up the big boss job?”

Alex was always aware that an expiry date loomed over their heads. Eventually, she would have to return to the DEO and take over command. But seeds of hope had been sown that day in the airport cafe, and she had let herself fantasize about staying on track with this mission, seeing it through to the end, finding and freeing her father.

Her lack of answer made Maggie slow her pace. In the hunch of her shoulders, Alex saw the realisation kicking in. “You haven’t made up your mind yet, have you?”

“About going home?” Alex glanced at her to confirm whether that was what she meant. “No.”

“You barely have days until your flight, Alex.”

“About that-”

Maggie tripped, stumbling forward a few steps. Alex shot a hand out to help steady her, but before she could ask what happened, a wailing siren blared out from all sides, echoing around the valley. It rose to a screech and fell again, undulating like an old nuclear drill siren.

Alex looked down, seeing a peg uprooted from the ground where Maggie’s foot had caught it. She took off her cap, swiping the sweat from her brow, the hair on the back of her neck standing up at the siren.

“That can’t be good.”

~

**_National City_ **

“To the future!”

“The future!” Kara cheered. J’onn, Brainy and Eliza clinked their glasses to hers.

Kara took a healthy sip, and then remarked, “I think it’s sad Alex isn’t here for this. It would be nice to celebrate her promotion.”

“Yes and no,” J’onn replied. “It’s good that she finally choose to step back and seek respite. I think it could be exactly what she needs to get into a new headspace.”

“I’m immensely proud of her,” Eliza said, playing with the rim of her wine glass. “I always want to tell her but, well, you know what Alex can be like.”

“She never officially told me her decision,” J’onn said. “She could come back from Europe and decide she would rather have another director in place. I can imagine she might prefer to stay in the field.”

“Well, if she does take it,” Kara said. “She’s gonna kick ass.”

While J’onn and Eliza nodded, she couldn’t help but notice Brainy’s polite smile. Once again, those childish pangs of loneliness rattled through her. She couldn’t help looking at their empty plates, remembering a time when this apartment would have had raucous laughter and debates over who was and wasn’t cheating at game nights. That was gone, now.

Her phone vibrated. “Oh, Alex sent me another picture!” She opened the message, marvelling at the sunny photograph of a majestic building. “Wow.”

She tipped the phone towards Brainy, not wanting him to feel excluded.

“Madrid, you said? The Royal Palace, I assume,” Brainy observed, “Astounding.”

“You know, she’s doing a lot more sightseeing than I thought she would,” Eliza noted, as Kara tilted the screen to her and J’onn.

“A lot of monuments...” J’onn said contemplatively, more to himself than the others.

“Yeah, well, Alex isn’t exactly the selfie type,” Kara teased, making air quotations with her free hand.

“Yes, but- may I?” Brainy swiped through the pictures that Alex had sent over the previous three weeks, back and forth, and then glanced at Kara.

Seeing that he was silently asking her for possession, she flashed him an easy smile and handed over her phone. He left the app, and within thirty seconds, had seven internet tabs open, all with the landmarks that Alex had claimed she had been visiting. Leaning over Brainy’s shoulder, Kara watched as he matched the search engine results to the personal messages, the shadow of doubt falling around them.

“Unless your sister was a gifted photographer  _which-_ ” He held up a finger- “She may well be, I suspected that these are not her own stills. And, as you can see,” he pointed the finger at the screen, “These are all from Google.”

“It can’t be-” She cut herself off, having seen it for herself. Eliza and J’onn got up and joined her, peering over Brainy’s shoulder as she stepped back. “But I saw her off at the airport.”

With a flourish of activity, Brainy handed the phone back to her and hurried over to the window. He took out his own cell, tapping furiously. Kara exchanged a concerned look with J’onn and Eliza, and then approached slowly. She had watched him spend hours rejigging the technology to suit his own futuristic visions, or at least within the limitations of what was possible in this year.

“Can you give me your sister’s number?” Kara rhymed it off, and Brainy nodded along, thumbs working at the screen. Then he held it up to the window, waiting until it beeped. Then he lowered it, squinted at numbers on the screen.

“What do they mean?” she asked.

“They’re…” He closed his eyes, bopping his head as if to a rhythm, and then clicked his fingers. “Spain.” He twirled to face all three of them. “Yes, her cell is pinging in Spain.”

Kara breathed out a relieved huff. “Brainy, of course it is. That’s where-”

“No, not Madrid. Further south. Those numbers…” He paced back to the table, stopping and starting several times like a stalling car. He set his own cell phone down on the table beside the stack of empty plates from dinner.

“Where is she?” Elisa asked, a tremor in her question as her eyes bounced from Kara, to J’onn and back to Brainy.

“Matersa,” Brainy announced.

“Far be it for me to hope Alex would actually take a vacation,” J’onn grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Maybe she’s just travelling right now?” Eliza offered, wringing her hands together. “It is early morning now in Spain, isn’t it? With the time difference? She could be on a train or-”

“No, it’s not travel,” J’onn said darkly.

Kara drank in his stern expression as he clicked his tongue and wandered away from them. “What do you mean?”

He propped his hands on his hips. “Matersa is the location of a base owned by a former shareholder in L-Corp. We believed it could be where some of their weapons development was taking place, but we never had enough proof to warrant a raid, especially on international soil.”

“L-Corp?” Eliza echoed, glancing between them.

“Even with Lena Luthor as the CEO, we considered it a possibility that Cadmus still had use of the base.”

“If Alex isn’t on vacation, and she’s in the same place as a suspected Cadmus facility,” Kara said carefully, “You don’t think she’s gone after a lead on her own, do you?”

Her only answer came in the form of three blank faces.

~

**_Matersa, Spain_ **

The stiff hostel door crashed open, finally giving way with the third shove of her shoulder.

With a grunt, Alex half-carried her companion over the threshold. One of Maggie’s arms was slung over Alex’s shoulders, and the other pressed against the bloody patch on her stomach. Together, they managed to hobble over towards the single bed, and Maggie collapsed down onto it with a cry of pain.  

“That was closer than I’d expected it would be,” she panted, half-chuckling.

“Way closer than I’d have liked, too,” Alex mumbled, kneeling next to her suitcase and rooting around for the first aid kit. “Up.”

Maggie snickered, pulling off her shirt and then bunching up the hem of the tank top. Alex snapped open the first aid kit, glancing at Maggie’s seeping wound. She lay the green box open on the floor and shuffled forward between Maggie’s knees. Circumstances aside, a familiar thrill tingled at the back of her skull.

Wanting to remain disciplined, she kept her eyes on the wound.

“Not too bad,” she mumbled.

“Feels a little bad,” Maggie replied, pulling a low chuckle from both of them.

Their eyes met, and that familiar ache took hold in Alex’s chest. This cubby hole of a hotel room had a bad draft, obscene teal coloured walls, and students underneath who would play 90s eurodance well into the night. But sharing the creaking, stiff mattress with Maggie curled against her the past two nights had made all of it worth it. And before that in Alacrucia, and before that-

Maggie’s eyes shifted away, and  _there_ it was. The inevitable pull away, the inability to handle the intimacy that had grown once again between them. It left Alex feeling used and dirty, regardless of whether that was the intention or not. But she also felt weak, because she never refused it; she wanted it just as badly.

She scoffed, tearing open the box of rubber gloves. “Why won’t you let me in?”

Pulling on a pair, she set to work cleaning around the wound when Maggie answered with a purr.

“I don’t know about that Danvers. I think I’ve let you in a few times.”

Alex blushed as the thumping eurodance downstairs sent vibrations up her knees and thighs. What Maggie was implying was clear, but this comment flirted with unspoken boundaries, and she hesitated to give chase just to be shut out once again.

“Only after we’re thrumming with adrenaline from almost losing each other,” she replied pointedly, nodding to the wound. She was relieved that, once the crusted blood was wiped away, it didn’t seem nearly as severe. She rifled through the box once more.  

Maggie grimaced as Alex began the line of stitches. “Alex, we really shouldn’t talk about this. About...us.”

“You brought it up.”

“I did.” Alex saw how her muscles rippled as she inhaled sharply through her nose. “My mistake.”

Anger flushed Alex’s cheeks, and she fought to keep her concentration. “Of course you’d say that.”

“It was a joke-”

“A joke and a mistake,” Alex snorted, sitting back on her heels for a beat or two. “You should have about that before you dragged me to bed again.”

“Oh, I dragged you into bed, huh? If I remember correctly it was you who basically pushed me into it last- _shit_ -” She hissed and flinched away as the stitches reached a particularly tender section.

Alex lifted her fingertips away for a second, seeing some of the colour draining from Maggie’s face. The injured woman took several long, steadying breaths, and then nodded jerkily for Alex to continue.

She rolled the needle between her forefinger and thumb, and then set back to work. She bit her tongue, listening to Maggie’s laboured breathing hitch and grow ragged with the effort of holding still and letting her stitch.

Finally, however, the dam broke; “I will always want you, Maggie. But I want more than this, or nothing at all.”

Maggie had the edge of the mattress on either side of her hips gripped in her fists, and yet at Alex’s confession, they turned impossibly more white-knuckled. “Alex, please, don't go down this line.”

Alex clenched her jaw, trying not to let her frustrations transfer into her threading. “You think it’s easy getting to hold you each night and then have you push me away each morning?”

Maggie let out a mirthless laugh, expression twisting in pain due to her stomach muscles. “I don't think you should be talking about pushing people away.”

The bickering could have escalated, and she almost craved the fight. This had been the closest they had come to actually discussing the pattern they had fallen into. But one look at Maggie’s pale face and brow prickled with sweat, and she knew it wouldn’t be fair- regardless of what she felt would have been fair to herself. So she held back, finishing the job without comment.

White gauze pressed over the stitches, Alex tore off her gloves and jumped up from the floor. Going back home without any results would be devastating, but it would free her from this chokehold, at least.

“You’re done,” she growled, stalking to the bathroom.

~

**_Madrid, Spain_ **

Early evening, and the crowds swarmed the square, some alighting on the marble fountain of two lovers embracing. Kara watched them pass, enjoying the dripping cone in her hand. It was rare that she ever travelled globally, but when she did, there were a number of spots where she treated herself, one being the corner store off La Plaza de Amantes, which sold what she would happily swear was the best ice cream to be found on the planet.

She sat on a stone bench, gazing up at a screen that spanned a whole story of a building in the square. It was showing the news, and she beamed as they displayed pictures of Supergirl stopping to greet some tourists in other parts of the capital. She couldn’t speak the language, but the newscasters laughed and smiled as they spoke about the pictures, so Kara assumed it was the reaction to the visit was positive.

A cold splodge smacked down onto her thigh, and she whined as the icecream soaked into her slacks. “Oh, damn.”

As she pawed at her leg with a tissue, Kara thought about how Alex hadn’t gotten in contact yet to wrangle an explanation for her international visit, which meant that whatever she was doing in Matersa, she wasn’t paying attention to the news.

She gave Alex another few minutes, crunched the rest of her cone, and then made the call.

_“Hey-”_

“Where are you?” Kara asked, brushing some of the crumbs off of her trousers.

_“Kara? What’s wrong?”_

“Where are you?” she calmly repeated.

_“Uh, didn’t you get the pic? You know I’m in-”_

“No, where are you really?”

There was a pause, and Kara could practically hear Alex realising she had been caught out. She sounded distant as she began to talk to someone with her, and after a few muffled exchanges, Alex sighed and came back to the phone.

_“You’re in Spain, aren’t you?”_ she asked, sounding defeated.

“I am. And you’re in Matersa.”

_“I-Are you-Where are you?”_

“Madrid.”

There was more muted conversation, and Kara suspected Alex was pressing her thumb over the microphone. Superhearing or not, she couldn’t quite make out what exactly was being said.

_“I’m gonna send you through my hotel’s location. Don’t land on the balcony, just...come through to the room,”_ Alex eventually replied.  _“You can come get me.”_

“Be there soon,” Kara said, and hung up.

She waited until Alex sent through a pin for Google maps, and then slipped into a back alley. Hiding in the shade, the sound of the crowds further away, she stripped. Then, after another pause, she took to the sky.

~

**_Matersa, Spain_ **

Alex hung up the phone and slowly lowered it. “Kara’s coming for me.”

“Oh,” she heard behind her. She thought she detected disappointment, but brushed it off as wishful thinking. “Guess you’re going home early then.”

“Guess so.” Alex turned, catching Maggie gingerly rubbing her fingertips over the top of her fresh bandages. “It had to end sometime.”

Maggie’s fingertips stilled, and she turned away. “Yeah.”

“I just wish-”

“Don’t.”

Alex watched the stiff manner in which Maggie pivoted away from her. She wanted to push, to fight, to use this as the match that would burn down their relationship once and for all. She was sick of choking back her emotions, because wasn’t that what Maggie had taught her not to do?

Instead, she knelt back on the floor, telling herself that in these final few moments, the defeat she felt wasn’t Maggie’s fault, or her own. They hadn’t gotten closer to finding Jeremiah, and she was fed up.

Even with the constant banging eurodance from downstairs, everything from the zip of the suitcase to the packing away of shoes was deafening. It took Alex right back to her own apartment; different circumstances with the same undercurrent of dread leading up to a separation. A stolen glimpse of Maggie’s tense figure told her that she felt exactly the same way.

Eventually, Maggie tried to cut through the apprehension, painted with the same defeat and apology that Alex harboured inside. “Look, I’m sorry that we haven’t found your dad. And I’m...” She rubbed her palms together, looking down at her feet. “I’m sorry about…not letting you in.”

“I-” Alex rose, brushing off her knees. Despite the bickering that had come in spates over the last three and a half weeks, it was the olive branch that was the tipping point. She held up a hand. “I can’t do this.”

“But maybe we have to anyway.” Maggie wandered towards the window, peering out to the balcony. “Look, this was a lead that the Science Division gave me permission to follow, and while we’ve been running in circles, I just hope that you won’t see this as a complete waste of your time.”

“No.” Alex grounded herself as Maggie turned to face her again. “I mean, I don’t know if I can do  _this_.”

Maggie’s expression hardened. “You’ve been  _doing this_ for three and a half weeks-”

There came a knock.

Alex’s reply stung at the tip of her tongue.  _She_ hadn’t been the one playing this cat and mouse game for almost a month.

Another knock, impatient.

“Supersister is here,” Maggie muttered, turning away towards the streaky balcony windows again.

Alex let her hand rest on the doorknob for a moment or two before opening.

“Alex, what the hell-Mag- oh.” Her speech stumbled to a stop as her attention rebounded between the occupants of the room, falling once to the single bed, and then skittering away to the floor. “ _Oh_.”

“Let me just finish packing,” Alex said, clipped and uninterested in explaining herself quite yet.

Maggie gave a grunt, fixing her tank top and reaching for her shirt on the bed as Alex knelt down. Carefully, she unzipped the side compartment in her suitcase, second-guessing for a beat before sliding out the velvet ring box. Using her body to block it from view, she put it into the first aid kit, quickly snapping it shut.

Standing, she doubted she had enough courage to hand it over, but she finally held it out to Maggie anyway. The other woman flinched in surprise as if she expected a blow. Alex softened, giving her a wry smile, lifting the green box a few inches higher.

Maggie’s fingers curled slowly around it, as if she was taking a gift that she was afraid was going to be yanked away at any second. She traced a thumb over the white cross, and then said, “I won’t stop looking. I’m here as long as the Science Division thinks this is a lead worth chasing.”

Alex heard the subtext in her voice, and ducked her chin. “That’s all I can ask.”

Maggie glanced at Kara, and then reached out, putting a hand on Alex’s bicep. “Safe home.”

Making sure Kara was still studying the teal paint of the wall, Alex wrapped Maggie in her arms, taking care to avoid the gauze on her stomach. The smaller woman stiffened in surprise, but relaxed as Alex pulled her even closer, snaking her arms around Alex’s waist.

It was intimate, one last embrace before they left the routine for the real world. These nights they shared in foreign lands were to be brushed aside, but Alex knew it would be difficult for her to forget. It was like they were chess pieces that had spent time away from the world of black and white and now couldn’t remember their roles on the board.

“You keep yourself safe, too,” Alex whispered, letting her lips brush over the shell of Maggie’s ear, feeling the shiver that ran through her as a result.

They stepped back, practically retracting themselves from each other. Kara, sensing that their moment was over, turned back around.

“Ready?” she prompted, and at Alex’s nod, turned to Maggie. “I’ll come back for the bags. Won’t be more than a half hour.”

“Good to see you, Kara.”

Knocked off balance by the genuine comment, Kara nodded sharply, gave a half-smile, and then marched out of the hotel room. With one last half-hearted wave, Alex trailed out behind her.

Kara waited until they were in the alleyway at the side of the hotel before she spoke. “Alex-”

“No, I don’t wanna talk about this yet. Just fly us home, please?”

Kara nodded, holding her arms out. Laughing despite the tension, Alex hopped into her sister’s arms, reminded of the times they joked about the Scooby Doo and Shaggy pose. She got butterflies, like always, as Kara launched them into the warm Spanish evening.

“If you happen to drop me,” Alex shouted, the wind rushing past her ears,“Please don’t make it over the Atlantic Ocean. I kinda have a thing about drowning.”

_“Alex!”_

~

**_National City_ **

Jetlagged, disorientated and longing for the chatter of other languages around her to fill up her empty apartment, Alex sat on her couch, scrolling through headlines about Supergirl visiting Spain.

A key scraped in the lock, and she looked up in alarm as her mother entered.

“Mom?” She straightened. “Hey-”

“Oh, please don’t get up.” Eliza pushed the door shut and shuffled over, taking a deliberate glance at her home screen. “Oh, there’s been a lot of press about the visit, hasn’t there?”

“Mostly just good PR, though,” Alex said.

“Did you read the Op-ed by Calvin Gutherby?”

“The one about how Supergirl shouldn’t be running into international borders if she claims to stand for American values?” Alex shared a sly smile with her mother, and then rolled her eyes, locking her phone screen. “It was Spain. Who is he kidding? You’d think she wandered into a warzone with the stars and stripes as her cape.”

The tension was palpable, and after the past few weeks, Alex had had enough of spending every moment on the edge.

“Mom, just say it,” she said tiredly.

Eliza sucked in a breath. “Sweetie, why did you lie about where you were?”

Alex drew her legs in, resting her elbows over her knees. “I was hunting Cadmus, Mom.”

When no gasp of surprise came, Alex closed her eyes, partly embarrassed and partly irritated that everyone seemed to have been in the know. Kara coming to get her made her feel as if she was a child being chastised for skipping school, and having Eliza stare at her in that quasi-stern way just cemented that feeling. To drive the final nail in the coffin, Alex had nothing to show for her month abroad.

“You could have been hurt, and we wouldn’t have known,” Eliza said, looking down and toying with the empty space where her wedding ring used to be.

They had a strained relationship at the best of times, but seeing that unconscious reminder of Eliza’s own heartbreak and longing, a connection was forged. The need to unlock another part of herself for her mother to see made her shift slightly.

“Actually,” she started carefully. “You would have known.”

Eliza frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t alone.”

The hands stilled, flattening against Eliza’s thighs, bracing themselves. When no comment came, Alex pushed ahead.

“The information about Cadmus, about their connections in Europe, I got it from a tip off here in National City. Then followed it until it led to Matersa.” She bit her lower lip, remembering those initial, tentative days in Maasrichem, the sweaty nights in Alacrucia, the desperation of Matersa. “I got the information through Maggie.”

“Oh.” The first drop in the well, but Alex waited for the echo:  _“Oh_.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“Well...” Eliza rubbed her palms up and down her lap, looking down at the floor. Alex watched her working through several questions before settling on a simple; “How is she?”

“Good. She’s…” She scratched the back of her neck. “She’s good.”

Eliza focused on her with that constant, knowing gaze that mothers have, and Alex wondered if  _I slept with her_ was scrawled across her cheeks.

“Yeah,” Alex whispered, cutting to the quick before the question even graced the air. “But I can’t- I don’t want to talk about it yet, okay?”

Reaching over, Eliza patted Alex’s knee, smiling softly. “Okay.”

It was progress for them, learning this balance, and for once, Alex didn’t want to fling herself into the bathroom and hide with a bottle of scotch tucked in her fist. She was even more glad when Eliza changed the topic.

“You heard about Kara getting to mentor a new hire at CatCo?”

“I did.” Alex imagined Kara sitting in what used to be Cat Grant’s office, drunk on power with her feet on the desk. She smirked. “It’ll be good for her.”

“And you start your new job tomorrow morning,” Eliza said, tone light. “Are you happy to be back home?”

_I want to be in Matersa with Maggie. It was dangerous with two, it will be worse with one. I need to know she’s safe. I want to be there with her-_

Instead, Alex lied. “No place I’d rather be.”

~

**_Matersa, Spain_ **

Biting a packet of bandages between her teeth, Maggie slipped up her tank top and looked at the white gauze in the mirror. Her muscles twinged each time she recalled Alex’s steady but cautious fingertips on her skin- with or without gloves.

Maggie sighed, peeling back the edges of the gauze, trying to focus on the task at hand and not let herself get swept up in the loneliness that was her only company since Alex left. She was the one who had initiated it, that first night, and no matter how much she tried to shield herself from heartbreak by keeping it no strings, she was drawn deeper into it each time. It was naive of her, she knew, because she had tangled them in strings the moment she slipped the note through Alex’s door a month ago.

In the stark light of the hotel bathroom, she could see a purple bruise on her collarbone, Alex’s place of choice to mark her. Eyes trained on it, remembering the teeth that left it there, she blindly reached for the first aid kit on the edge of the sink. The box was knocked off balance, clattering to the floor, cascading instruments, band aids and ratting pill packets around it.

Sucking in a deep breath, Maggie bent down, moaning as a blistering pain ripped across her abdomen. By the time she was kneeling on the bathroom floor, sweat had broken across her forehead and prickled down her spine. She inhaled deeply as the tiled floor swam in front of her.

Vision readjusting, she found a crumpled piece of paper underneath her fingers. She lifted it, about to read when something else grabbed her attention, something that had been tucked away, hidden by plastic packets and bandages; in disbelief, she reached out to the navy ring box that Alex had presented to her after Maggie had accepted her proposal almost a year before.

Paper fluttering in her trembling hand, Maggie read the note:

_I didn’t know how to bring this up, but figured you’d find it eventually. Don’t let them get to you, Maggie. It breaks me to even offer you this, but I know if it were for me, you’d do the same._

_Love, forever,_

_Alex._

Maggie knew very well what Alex referred to; in the facility they had infiltrated that afternoon, they managed to find and scan old weapons blueprints. Most of them had been prototypes for weapons that would penetrate the exoskeleton of a range of alien species, but one blueprint horrified both of them.

It was for a device that resembled a worm with a jagged point, no longer or broader than a needle in real size. According to the report, it was capable of burying into a suspect’s brain, seizing upon the electrical impulses and transmitting the neurological to the physical. Strictly speaking, the device could be used with a monitor to read a suspect’s mind.  

Maggie shivered, and sprung open the box. She blinked at the jellied pill no larger than her thumbnail, filled with a mustard-yellow liquid. Delicately, she picked it up, holding it to the light and watching a miniscule air bubble float up and down as she moved it this way and that.

“Kiss of death, Danvers,” Maggie mused, “I’ll send a fruit basket in gratitude.”

She set the pill back inside the ring box and snapped it shut.

~

**_National City_ **

Her palms itched; wrangling hands clenched in and out of fists the entire ascent in the elevator. Then it groaned to stopped, pinged, and opened.

As the doors shuddered and split, all eyes turned to her.  

Even in her suit, even with years of experience with each of the men and women staring at her, and  _even_ with countless missions proving her calibre, Alex was petrified of tripping up as she made her way towards the command centre.  

Every agent tipped their chin and offered a  _“Good morning, ma’am,”_ as she passed, and pride welled in her chest. She had prepared a short speech, twisting her fingers and pacing her kitchen this morning, reciting it to her audience of the fridge and the coffeemaker.

But before she could rouse everyone’s attention, all of the monitors shot up a news bulletin. Reflexively, she looked for J’onn, then for Winn, and realised she had neither.

It was up to her now.  

She turned on her heel and saw dozens of eyes looking to her for orders, for answers, for any instructions. She set her jaw.

It was going to be a  _hell_ of a first day.


	2. 4x02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: References to suicide
> 
> In which I go completely overboard with foreshadowing, plagiarise an entire scene of dialogue from Allegiance and make fun of my own ideas. All mistakes are my own.

**_London, England_ **

Two men, one dressed in jeans and a red soccer shirt, the other in a neatly fitted grey suit.

“The first shipment is almost in the States. I’ll fly out there tonight and make sure everything is in order,” the man in the suit said in a clipped British accent. “You know how Lillian gets.”

“And you want us to supervise the second, then?” the man in the red shirt replied, slipping his hands into his pockets.

 _Another Englishman_ , Maggie noted, trying to burn as many details into her mind as possible. It would be important later, when she returned to her hotel room and scribbled down as much as she could recall into her notes. Not for the first time, she wished Alex were still there with her. Two brains were better than one, especially two brains trained exactly for exercises such as this.

“Shipments?” she murmured, shifting on her hunches as her thighs began to cramp.

The damp, musty warehouse was rank, and a putrid liquid was leaking through the worn hole in the toe of her left boot. The sharp splinters from the crates she was hiding behind pulled at the threads in her jeans and bit at her hands.

“Yes,” the suited man affirmed. “The agents are well trained, but they’re just monkeys waiting for orders. I need people who are alert enough to recognise if something is getting out of hand.”

“What, like the hybrids waking up?” football shirt asked warily. “Cause let me tell you, Colkirk, if one of them big boys wakes up I’m jumping into the Atlantic.”

“Oh, _that_ shouldn’t be a problem,” Colkirk assured, handing over what looked like a briefcase, but Maggie couldn’t quite see with the limited vision that the gap between crates gave her. “I’m trusting you with this for now. If you do have any questions or doubts, yours answers should be in here.”

 _Bingo._ She needed that case. She just wasn’t sure how to go about-

“And what do you think you’re up to?”

Maggie stiffened at a third voice. She didn’t get time to turn before a fist was grabbing a handful of her hair, yanking her up. She hissed as she was dragged to her feet and swung out towards the men that she had been watching. Stumbling, she winced at the tight grip, and then she was propelled forward. Off balance as he tore the backpack from her shoulders, she fell onto the warehouse floor.

Maggie tried to flip herself up, but a polished shoe came down onto her shoulder, pinning her on the ground. Staring straight up into Colkirk’s face in defiance, she got the first real look at him. He had a neatly combed crop of brilliant red hair, face pinched and pasty white.  

“Oh dear,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets and cocking his head. “I knew these warehouses were crawling with rats, but I didn’t think we’d find one quite like this.”

“Go to hell,” she spat.

“Ah, another American come to disappoint us.” His beady grey eyes narrowed. He pressed down on her shoulder with his toe. “What’s this one called?”

She refused to answer, glaring up at him. Impatient, he rolled his eyes and reached into the inside of his suit jacket, pulling out a miniature square box, only a few inches high.  

The _Worm_ ; she remembered the blueprints, staring at them until there were lips on her neck and Alex’s hands coaxing her to bed and away from the work of the day. But now, seeing the actual device, she could imagine it sawing into the bone of her skull, every single detail about her being ripe for taking, and her body locked in fear.

Paralysed under Colkirk’s boot, she watched him lift the worm out of the box. It was only two inches long, but it had the power to take everything from her, burrowing into her deepest shames and humiliations; being thrown out at 14, any case she made a mistake on, laying in a hotel bed with a strange woman knowing Emily was in her apartment, Alex breaking up with her-

“I have a flight to catch, so I really don’t have time for this.” He glanced at his golden wrist watch, and handed the worm out to the man in the red football shirt. “But I’m sure these lads will take good care of you.”

Red shirt took it, and as Colkirk stepped away, he put his foot on Maggie’s shoulder, keeping her down. The other man, in an emerald green jersey, took her bag and upturned it, spilling its contents all over the floor.

“See what this one knows about us,” Colkirk instructed, and then adjusted his tie. “I’m off.” He started away, and then paused. “Oh, and please remember to clean the grey matter off the device after using it, this time.”

“Alright,” red shirt said, his eyes sliding down Maggie’s body and making her skin crawl. “You got a name, love?”

The fire exit slammed shut, leaving her alone with the two men.

Green shirt toed at the items he had spilled from her backpack as he cradled a tablet. “No IDs, no passport, no nothing.”

“Not a big talker?” red shirt prompted. He nodded to the man in green, who gave a thumbs up, watching the tablet screen loading up. “That’s fine. We don’t need you to open your mouth.”

The mechanical worm squirmed in his palm as the tablet lit up, kicking life into it. It squirmed, the jagged, scalpel like head extending and retracting in rhythmic pulses. Maggie’s scalp prickled as she imagined it slicing through skin, burrowing through bone, wiggling around into her brain tissue, collecting data that she couldn’t control.

She knew too much about the DEO (and its new director), about Supergirl, about the alien community both in National City and in several other locations she had lived and worked. Pockets of information were there for the harvesting, and she couldn’t let that happen. She needed to protect them.

As he knelt down, his knee heavy against her shoulder, she felt the edge of a ring box poking into her side through her jacket.

And as the worm pierced at her temple, there was only one choice to be made.

“You don’t need me to,” Maggie said, wrenching the box from her jacket pocket, popping it open and putting the pill in her hand. “But I will.”

Before they could react, she smacked her palm against her mouth, chewing down as soon as the pill was on her tongue. The jellied capsule burst, a sour taste filling her mouth. She gagged at the bitterness, forcing herself to swallow it all. It had to work.

“What the-?”

Instantly, every nerve flared up in her body, zaps of electricity which began to _burn_.

_Goodnight, Danvers._

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she was away-

 

 

_~_

**_National City, USA_ **

-she landed flat on her back with a grunt. The Ziova rumbled victoriously, lumbering a few steps away. She flipped back to her feet, balling her hands into fists.

“I’ve tried to be nice to you, buddy,” Supergirl warned. “But that move was just mean.”

The gnarled, scrawny alien rose to its full height, snarling at her as she flew towards it. She tackled the Ziova around the waist, sending them tumbling back onto the wet tarmac, the lingering smell of rain in the humid air.  

A crackle in her ear: _“Supergirl, status update, please.”_

She ducked from another wild swing, delivering two swift punches to the alien’s abdomen and kicking its chest away from her.

“Who are you?” she barked. The Ziova trundled backwards, tripping over a fire hydrant and sprawling on its back. She gratefully took the breather, shaking out her shoulders.

_“Uh, I’m Agent Cavanaugh?”_

“Oh.” She squared up against as the Ziova roared and barrelled at her. “You’re Alex’s replacement.”

_“Yes, Supergirl, that would be correct.”_

“No offence, Agent Cavanaugh, but is Alex there?”

_“Director Danvers is on her way to Washington for a meeting.”_

“What- she never-” Supergirl bent backwards away from another wild swing, and then grabbed its wrist, grappling until she had it twisted and immobilised. “She never told me she was going anywhere.”

Cavanaugh didn’t reply to that. Supergirl caught a hit to her shoulder, but recovered quickly, and as the Ziova wheeled around, it left itself open for the critical blow.

Supergirl thumped her fist as hard as she could in the centre of the Ziova’s chest, sending it flying backwards. It sprawled onto the wet road, and was still. She unfurled her fingers, waiting for it to rise, but it remained motionless.

Another crackle. _“DEO clean up is just 2 minutes away, Supergirl.”_

“Thanks,” Kara mumbled, fixated on the Ziova.

Its chest had caved in where she had punched it, but it was an odd shape for an exoskeleton. She approached warily, and saw that her blow had caused a dent, like it was less alien and more metal.

Kara hesitated, and then knocked low on the exoskeleton of the Ziova’s chest. It was solid muscle. She moved up a few inches to where the dent was, and tried again. It was hollow. She hovered, knocking over the two spots, alternating and hearing the difference. She curled her hands over the top of the exoskeleton, just above the Ziova’s breastbone, and with a show of brute strength ripped it away. She gasped at what she uncovered.

A system of wires, lights and circuit boards greeted her. The heart was no longer beating, but it was still the only organic material to be found.

A DEO van rolled up, screeching to a stop. Kara heard the boots dropping onto the tarmac, the door slamming, but she didn’t turn.

“Find something interesting?” Vasquez called, coming over to her and staring down at the Ziova.

“Yeah, it looks like…” Images of Cyborg Superman, of Metallo, filled her head. But this was much more complex, more sleekly designed. It didn’t look like a product of the dark, dusky warehouses that produced those vulgar experiments. This looked planned, tested, and manufactured.

“Cadmus, Ma’am?” Vasquez asked, obviously thinking along the same lines.

“I need to call Alex,” Kara muttered, nodding her goodnight and launching into the air.

 

 

_~_

**_Washington D.C., USA_ **

Alex climbed the steep steps, wincing at the noise of the engines. She eagerly entered the cabin, searching for the nearest recliner. After an entire day of meetings, greetings and dining with her new colleagues, she was tapped dry. Washington bureaucracy was going to be a learning curve, one she needed to get over very quickly, lest she spend another visit floundering as she had today.

An agent approached. “Good evening, Ma’am.”

“Evening,” she said, flopping down into her chair and unbuttoning her blazer. She kicked off her heels, letting her body loll back into the puffy leather seat.

The agent’s lips quirked up into a half-smile as she set down a tumbler of scotch in front of Alex. “As you requested, Ma’am.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Alex savoured the initial burst of flavour on her tongue as she sipped the drink, swirling the ice in the glass as the cabin was shut. She wasn’t the fondest flyer, but if her next few trips were going to include complimentary scotch and a luxurious recliner, she was going to warm up to travelling very soon.

Her phone began to ring, and she glanced at her watch. Knowing there was a few minutes before they were cleared for take off, she answered.

“Danvers.”

_“You went to Washington D.C. all day?”_

Alex set her scotch down. “Hey, Kara.”

_“Did you take the jet? I could have taken you.”_

“I know. I hate planes, and you would have been faster,” Alex replied, peeking out of her window at the workers on the ground in their hi-vis jackets, “But honestly, Kara, we have to be seen as separate and independent entities now.”

_“What does that mean?”_

“It means,” Alex said, pausing to steal a swallow of scotch, “I had to come here as the DEO head, and not as Supergirl’s sister.”

_“I...guess I understand.”_

Alex caught the eye of the agent at the front of the cabin, looking at her expectedly, but not saying a word. She felt a rush of authority, different to that she had in the field, and it left her feeling odd. _Guilty_ , almost.

“We’re taking off now, so I have to go.”

_“Wait, there was this alien tonight that I think you should take a look at tomorrow. It’s really weird. Oh and there’s another-"_

“Sounds great,” she deadpanned, “Goodbye, Kara.”

_“Goodbye, Alex.”_

She hung up, nodded to the agent, and braced herself for the drop in her stomach that came from take off.

As they soared higher and higher, Alex thought about the menagerie of dossiers, contracts, NDAs and reports that she had to complete when she got back. She had been hit with a lot of disclosures and revelations that morning as she was officially granted her higher clearance, and a lot of it was swirling around her as if she were still being told the stories now.

She rested her head back against the plush headrest, closed her eyes and wondered where Maggie was at that exact moment. Growing unaware of the empty cabin around her, Alex lost herself in the hum of the engines, dropping into a deep sleep...

 

 

~

**_Maasrichem, Switzerland, 4 weeks ago_ **

They had been pouring for hours over satellite pictures, images printed from Google, notebooks in which they had both scribbled and scored and underlined. Empty boxes of take out littered the spaces between pages, and there were almost a dozen styrofoam cups from the coffee machine in the lobby.

Maggie rubbed at her forehead and closed her eyes, chagrined to find that the outline of the base they were hitting the next day was truly seared on the back of her eyelids.

“We should call it a night,” she announced.

Alex sat back, stretching her arms above her head. “Yeah, it’s late,” she managed through a yawn.

Maggie stood, bending her spine backwards and wincing at the ache of sitting in the same spot too long. She stretched out her legs, and wandered over to the balcony windows of Alex’s hotel room. Outside, night time shrouded the picturesque Swiss town, reducing it to a hundred glimmering lights.

Somewhere between the grassy slopes was an old mill that, according to a document in her dossier, had been used as a location for torture of aliens who had found a home in Switzerland and subsequently had found themselves in the hands of Cadmus. The town of Maasrichem was isolated, rural, quiet; perfect for making strangers disappear. No one would look for them here.

Maggie heard the creak of a chair as Alex stood behind her. She turned and caught Alex’s stare.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

It was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Alex blinked in surprise at the question. “Like what?”

Maggie’s throat closed, stomach tightened, warning her to go no further, and yet as she stepped away from the balcony windows, she swallowed and said, “Like _that._ ”

Alex’s mouth twitched, her gaze lingering on Maggie’s neck before skittering away to the floor. “I don’t know any other way to look at you.”

There was heartbreak there, the admission that she didn’t know how to erase the love from a look. And yet, the surface meaning, the lust; that seemed also to be part of Alex’s answer. Maggie measured her steps, one at a time, approaching Alex like she would a feral beast. “Really? Cause I could get the wrong idea of what you’re thinking.”

Alex’s throat bobbed. “What does it look like I’m thinking?” she rasped.

That moment, Maggie knew, would be the perfect time to roll her eyes, snicker and say that she was just ribbing her. Instead, she continued to prowl closer. She gave up on blurring the lines, getting rid of all but the one they were crossing.

“That you wanna put your hands on me,” she answered lowly.

“I…” Alex’s eyes were off the floor, climbing her torso, her chest, her neck, finally to her face. “I wanna put my hands on your every time I see you.”

Maggie’s guts twisted into knots at the lust smoothing over Alex’s face.

“So do something then.”

Alex exhaled slowly, shuffled a step forward, and then another, easing in like she thought Maggie was going to pull away at any second. The first touch of their lips was barely a brush, and Maggie’s eyes fluttered shut, softly pressing back. Even in those tentative pecks, Maggie could already taste the desperation amongst the disarray; Alex so uncertain, but _wanting it_.

And God, did Maggie want it too.

Soon, both of them seemed sure about the decision hanging in the air. It was made with foreheads pressed together, working each other’s shirts off, with heavy breathing and tongues teasing bottom lips as Maggie reached for Alex’s belt, only to have Alex bury her hands in her hair and drag her into a deep, passionate kiss.

Maggie sprawled back onto the bed, and she felt the shake in Alex’s hands as she lifted her hips to aid the agent in pulling off her pants and underwear. Alex crawled onto the bed, peppering kisses up Maggie’s body, sending her heart racing.  

For a moment, Alex hovered above her, a last lingering hesitation in her eyes. She swallowed, and Maggie tipped her head back, waiting, inviting. Finally, Alex ducked in for another kiss, but stopped herself. Instead, she dipped down to press her lips to Maggie’s jaw, trailing over her neck.

And as Alex’s teeth scraped her collarbone, Maggie wondered how all of the biggest mistakes in her life always felt so _damn_ good in the moment.

 

 

_~_

**_London, England_ **

Pearson and Lafferty stood there, looking down at the woman’s body. They had been terrified when she foamed at the mouth, choking and convulsing, but now that she was still, Lafferty was more shocked by the silence.  

“Is she...” He looked down at the worm, defunct, in a puddle. He hadn’t managed to burrow it into the woman’s skull, dropping it in surprise when the seizures began. “Did she just top herself?”

“She doesn’t look like she’s breathing,” Pearson replied, adjusting the tablet in unsteady arms. He nudged Lafferty’s elbow. “Go on, check her pulse.”

Lafferty took a solid step back. “No way. I’m not touching her.”

“Nah, she’s-” Pearson looked from his companion to the woman staring blankly up at the ceiling, pupils blown. “We’ve wrecked it, mate. God, we’ve absolutely wrecked it.”

Lafferty poked at the mechanical worm with the toe of his boot. “Colkirk said that it can malfunction and cause brain damage, right?” He looked in horror at wide, lifeless brown eyes.

They had only used the worm three times, this being the first occasion without supervision. They hadn’t been prepared for this kind of work, agreeing to work as hired hands for Colkirk in exchange for rising out of the local gang scene and getting a free pass to the United States.

“It didn’t even go in, man.” Pearson raked his free hand through his hair and then turned away. “We need to get out of here.”

“What?” Lafferty challenged, incredulously. “What are we gonna do, leave her here?”

Pearson set the tablet straight down on the concrete floor of the warehouse. “Well she’s not- I mean she’s not going anywhere, is she?”

Lafferty’s stomach churned as he focused again on the fixed stare. “Who was she?”

“Honestly right now I don’t really care,” Pearson said, striding towards a crate where he had draped his coat. He pulled it on, punching his arms through the sleeves.

“She could be an undercover peeler,” Lafferty suggested, watching him.

“Police from across the pond top themselves at the first sign of confrontation? That’s new.” Pearson flicked out his collar, eyes falling to the body again, hands smoothing down his sides. “Look whoever she was-” He shook his head, and started for the fire exit. “Nah, I’m leaving.”

“Wait-”

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving!” Pearson held up his hands.

Lafferty looked at the woman one last time, crossed himself and looked to God. Then he followed his partner out the door, without another look back.

 

 

~

**_Also in London, England…_ **

She was in a meadow, grass high and wild, the sun warm on her face. She could hear the trickle of water in a creek, trees rustling in the breeze, birds chirping on the branches.

She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, bathing in the sunshine.

“Maggie.”

She opened her eyes, seeing Alex in front of her. She was dressed in her DEO uniform, so out of place for the countryside.

“Alex,” she breathed. “Is- am I- I mean, am I dead?” Alex’s smile was docile in response, expression filled with love and a sad acceptance. Maggie’s heart sank, realising the pill must have worked. “God, I’m sorry, I-”

“Maggie.”

She blinked and turned in confusion to see a second Alex, also smiling at her in that bittersweet way. But over her shoulder, there was a third, the same expression etched onto their face.

Maggie turned in a gradual circle, taking in the dozens of Alex clones around her, all with that same expression. But while their demeanour was identical, they all wore different outfits. Some in leather jackets, some in blouses, some in dresses of different cuts and lengths. Her eyes widened as she took them all in.

“Maggie?” the first Alex prompted, now frowning in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Maggie?” another echoed, and then another, and soon they were all asking her if she was okay, if something was wrong, if something was bothering her.

Overwhelmed, Maggie staggered backwards, heel catching on a rock and sending her straight down. Flat on her back, she blinked, and the grass was gone.

“You alright, love?”

Vision seeming to calibrate, Maggie gaped up at the elderly woman that hovered over her, her squint magnified behind her bifocals. Around them was London, blaring and grimey. She flinched as people walked by, not caring if they trampled her in the process.

“I think you’ve hit your head, darling,” the woman said, waving a wrinkled finger in her face.  

Jerking away, Maggie slid back and sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She was back in the city, somehow. She got to her feet, ignoring the woman’s perturbed noises as she staggered her way towards a park.

Sinking down onto the first bench she found, Maggie tried to piece it together. She had taken the pill, but had it worked in time? Or had they gotten that _worm_ into her skull, and then dumped her onto the street when they were done? Panicking, her fingertips rubbed up her temples, and scraped into her hair, over her skull. She searched for a prick, or a hole, where they had knocked her out and taken her memories and-

“You can’t sit there. Didn’t you see the wet paint sign?”

Maggie looked up to see a uniformed Met officer. She just about made it to the stab vest when the officer brought out their baton. Only then did she realise who it was.

“You need to move along,” Alex instructed.

“You’re- wait- a cop?” Maggie rubbed again at her throbbing temples. “Alex, what-?”

Alex turned and banged her baton twice against the railings behind her that ran around the edge of the park. “Come on, shift it.”

Stumbling up, Maggie gawked as Alex stared at her, and then clasped her hands behind her back, surveying the rest of the street. She wandered along the cobbles, and hooves clopped along towards her. The white horse ambled past, easy and unconcerned, a mounted officer on its back.

Maggie halted when she caught sight of Alex on the horse, again in uniform. She tipped her hat at Maggie’s gaping expression as she passed.

Fluorescent Met vest or not: “God, you fill a uniform well,” Maggie uttered, watching the horse’s tail swish as they continued along the street. These images shifted her back to her original mindset, that she had, in fact, been successful in taking the pill before the Cadmus agents got to her.

She continued around the edge of the park, following the railing around a bend, and saw two figures tumbling out of a corner bar on the other side. It was Kara and Alex, again, but they seemed locked in some sort of scramble.  

It was a scrap, none of the practised moves or combinations from training. It was sloppy punches, grappling, wrestling, _hair-pulling_. Not a fight like any Maggie had seen between them in the hours she had spent watching them train in the DEO.

“I’m really dead,” Maggie said faintly, looking around her at the strange faces of those around. The only constant was the appearances of Alex, and even then, she wasn’t sure what to make of them.

Unsteady on her feet as the grief set in, she was knocked at the revelation that she had died and that there _was_ an afterlife. Perhaps she was a ghost, haunting London, the foreign city in which she died. Or at least, this warped version of it.

She walked into the park via a large black gate, and found herself on a path that divided two picnic tables. On her right, Lillian Luthor and Alex were engaged in a game of what appearance to be _Battleships,_ each having claimed a tiny grey boat. On her left, Kara and that man- Colkirk- stared at each other over a game of chess.

“Is this heaven, or hell…” Maggie trailed, and then watched as Lillian held up a fist. She revealed a small toy soldier, as if in victory. She made sure Alex got a good look, before she curled him into her fist and threw him away. The toy wheeled through the air, hitting the edge of a waste bin before plunging into a murky pond.  

Maggie watched Alex’s face twist in horror, and she blinked in realisation.

“I’m in purgatory.”

 

 

~

**_National City, USA_ **

Before she even began to fend off the mountain of questions that Kara no doubt had about Washington, Alex threatened to withhold the pizza and potstickers she had brought. That alone nipped the issue right in the bud.

They ate and caught up on the smaller things, Kara opening with an anecdote about how Noonan’s was closing for refurbishment-

_“Where am I going to get my sticky buns for two weeks, Alex? Two whole weeks!”_

\- Then, Kara put on the latest episode of the current show that they were binge-watching their way through, and Alex relaxed. When the credits rolled, Kara paused, and turned towards her sister, fixing the blankets around her feet.

“How’s the mentoring going?” Alex asked, eager to jump in first, knowing Kara was itching to ask uncomfortable questions that she either couldn’t answer or didn’t want to.

Kara groaned, dropping her head back. “She’s so mean, Alex.”

“Not everyone is a kissass, Kara.”

“A kissass?” Kara squeaked. “How dare-!”

“Come on,” Alex interrupted. “You can’t deny you were rather attentive when it came to the needs of Miss Grant.”

Kara reached for another slice of pizza from the open box that they had abandoned half-way through the episode, chewing thoughtfully.

“Oh! How was _your_ first week?”

“Busy.”

Alex thought of that round, mahogany table. Those hawks staring at her, each new contract or negotiating agreement that she signed feeling as if they were hitching more and more strings around her limbs. Is that was J’onn had been, a puppet? How exactly were they planning to make her dance, and to which tune?

“I had to meet so many new people, sign so many new forms. I’ve got a new level of clearance and _God_ Kara.” She snorted, rolling the edge of the blanket between her forefinger and thumb. “The stuff our organisation has been involved in.”

“Maybe Maggie was right about the DEO, after all.”

Alex dropped the blanket. “And you finally found a way to bring it up.”

Unbridled by the obvious rebuff, Kara played with the edge of the blanket, picking up where Alex had left off. “I’m uncomfortable with the idea that she might have taken advantage of you.”

“Okay first of all, Maggie would never. Secondly, why am I the one being taken advantage of?”

“You mean you aren’t an americana pulp novel female love interest?” Kara asked, aghast.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Well, it was a foreign romance…”

They maintained serious expressions for a beat, and then both of them burst into a fit of snickering, the heaviness of the conversation buckling under their giddiness.

When their mirth died down, Alex sighed, picking up a slice of pizza and picking off a slice of pepperoni. “It was mutual,” she confirmed, before popping the topping into her mouth.

“Who started it?”

“She did, or I did, kinda.” Alex remembered those dark eyes, those words daring her to want, to take. “It was supposed to be once, but then it was one of us almost getting shot and, well, it got complicated.”

“I thought it would be.” Kara took a bite of her pizza, and Alex saw it as the obvious opening for her to talk, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted to.

“It just- it was so-” She took a bite of her own pizza, and then carefully set it back in the box, aside from the remainder of the slices. She wiped her hands, swallowed a mouthful of wine, and then gathered herself. “I mean, it was a different country, different culture, different language. We only had each other.”

“Where was it, at first?” Kara asked quietly, a blush forming high on her cheeks. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Maasrichem.” With its green grassy slopes and those flowery bedsheets, she thought. “And no, French is not one of the languages I speak, so we really were kinda clueless at times.”

Kara wrinkled her nose. “France?”

“Switzerland.”

“You went to _Switzerland_ and didn’t bring me back any of their delicious-?!” She stopped short at Alex’s glare, and dipped her chin. “Right, not the point.”

Reclaiming her slice, Alex took another bite or two, and for a while they ate in silence. She could practically hear the gears whirring in Kara’s head, but with the exhaustion heavy on her shoulders, she could do without the righteous judgement that her sister would inevitably impart.

“You know, this is gonna sound so selfish and stupid,” she said, pausing at the fact that it sounded so much like a disclaimer. “But honestly? It just felt like all those times we talked about travelling together. She’s way more of a globetrotter than I am and I just- being by her side, passports in hand, going through airports...” Alex waved a hand, which fell into her lap to pick at the pizza toppings again. “The whole thing.”

“It’s okay to feel that way.”

Alex looked up in surprise. “It is?”

“Sure. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last year, it’s that I…” Kara made a face and dusted her hands on her pyjamas. “I’ve been unfair to you. When you slept with Sara, I completely ignored your pain and I just, I guess I just got excited at the wedding and the atmosphere and…” She grew bashful. “You know how I get over excited, sometimes.”

“Kara,” Alex lamented. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I dragged you to Midvale, tried to tell you how to deal with things even though, hello, that made me a huge hypocrite. You were so right to call me out.”

“I was hurting. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“I needed to hear it.” Kara smiled sadly. “And then, when you weren’t getting over Maggie I just...I wish I’d been there, Alex.”

“The whole year has been crazy. Europe…” She clenched her jaw, hanging her head. “I just wish we’d gotten closer to finding Dad.”

“Oh, Alex.”

“Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay.”

“She will be. She’s brave and tough, remember?” The side of Kara’s mouth, spotted with tomato sauce, quirked up.

“You…” Alex wiggled her fingertip at her lips, and Kara frowned, darting her tongue up over her lip. It broke them out of the tension immediately, a wave of relief passing over her.

“Okay, I’ve had enough,” Alex said, chewing another chunk off her pizza and mumbling through her mouthful, “Anymore and I’m gonna need something way stronger than wine.” She swallowed, pointed at the frozen TV screen. “Let’s keep watching _Versatile_.”

“Okay!” Kara clapped, lifting the blanket this way and that in search of the remote. “You know, the flashbacks are super confusing.”

“It’s the drug sequences that I don’t understand.” Alex felt the remote wedged under her foot, and dug it out from the middle of the couch. “Is it real? Is it not? Is that really what those drugs do?”

“And why are there no consequences for anything they do? British TV is just so weird.” She grabbed the remote from Alex, pressing play. “Let’s watch.”

 

 

_~_

**_London, England_ **

All was still, dawn breaking in the capital. And then-

Her eyes snapped open. She was curled on her side, shivering, a puddle of rainwater burning at one nostril-

Maggie surged upwards, sucking in a huge lungful of air, spluttering at the water in the back of her throat. She pawed at one cheek, wiping away the cold water and brushing back her damp hair.

Once she finished choking, Maggie blinked around the dim warehouse, searching in the shadows for any of her captors. There were no sounds of shuffling feet or hushed conversation. In fact, apart from the drip of rainwater, the far off wail of sirens and the occasional rush of distant early morning traffic, Maggie couldn’t hear anything.

She struggled to get her bearings, feeling like she had been sleeping for years. The items that had been tossed out of her pack were still strewn around the floor, and she snatched at the water bottle, gulping down half of the bottle almost as soon as she had the cap off.

Last night, she had taken the pill. She should be dead, but somehow...

“I’m alive,” Maggie whispered hoarsely. “I’m…”

In the puddle beside her, she found the worm, the one they had been intending to use on her. Gingerly, the pinched it between her forefinger and thumb, realising that once again, she had misjudged her ex. Even with a thick coat on her tongue, grime and grit on her skin, damp rain water running down her neck, she felt elation warming her bones, stiff from spending the night on a musty warehouse floor.

She hadn’t died, she had tripped.

“An anti-torture drug,” she marvelled. She swished another mouthful of stale water around her mouth, spitting it onto the ground. “Danvers, you freakin’ genius.”

After seeing how her father had been molded by Cadmus to suit their will, Alex had briefly flirted with the idea of developing some kind of chemical or psychological blocker against physical torture or mind manipulation. It had arisen again after she was taken and almost died in the tank, but dropped when other priorities came onto the horizon.  

Sometime between then and now, Alex had gone through with her experiment.

Standing with a groan, Maggie rolled her neck. She checked her phone was still in her jacket, and when she found that it was, she drew it out. It still had 13% charge.

“Good enough,” she grumbled, blinking muck out of her eyes. “At least I don’t have to wonder what _flower power_ was like, anymore.”

She took stock of the items they had tipped out of her bag, trying to figure out if they had taken anything. Pleased to find that everything was in order, she grabbed her bag and started to fill it, pausing when she spotted a dark outline a few feet away. Hope bloomed in her chest; a briefcase, toppled onto its side. Slowly, she crawled over, unclasping it.

In their haste to leave her to die, they had left behind the torture device, the tablet and technology used to work it, and a wealth of other information. She leafed through the documents; plans for weapons, building sites, operations in a range of countries with instructions in a number of languages. It was the kind of treasure trove that she had been hunting for. A real lead.

And all she had to do was die to get it.

“Bingo,” Maggie hissed, grinning wickedly as she stuffed the papers back into the sections of the accordion and snapped the briefcase shut.

Her affairs in order, Maggie stepped out of the warehouse. It was nippy, but she savoured the chill against her clammy skin. She walked to the railing that ran along the length of the river, setting her backpack and the briefcase down. Then, she fished her phone out of her pocket.

She knew she could get Kara to go back for her stuff at the hotel, but that flight to Oslo was a no go. The pair had left her for dead, but they would probably check if she boarded. She needed to buy herself time to get home, at least. She had kicked the hornet’s nest, and she doubted they had gone back to sleep quite yet.

_“Hello?”_

It was obvious from the chipper tone that she had answered without checking her ID. “Hey, Kara.”

_“Maggie?”_

“Yup. It’s me.” She leaned against the chipped railings, staring up the Thames at the gloomy English morning. “You busy right now?”

_“I’m...about to go to bed, so no?”_

“You ever seen Buckingham Palace?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I'm aiming to upload at least once a week, all being well. Let me know what the craic is @santonaranja


	3. 4x03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4x03: In which plotty things happen, a new character is introduced, and Maggie and Kara fight a dragon. Kind of...
> 
> Tw: reference to suicide and needles

The body lay prostrate, still on the metal table. She pulled on gloves, smacking them against her wrist, and then stared across the room, locking eyes with her assistant. 

“Ready?” he asked, bouncing on his toes.

“Lay it down.”

“Well, after taking several tissue samples and reviewing the cross-sectional scans,” Brainy said, bobbing his head as he spoke. “We found that it is neither fully alien, nor fully AI, but a hybrid of both.”

Alex nodded slowly, her suspicions confirmed. “So it is a hybrid.”

“We believe so.” Brainy rattled the broken section of exoskeleton. “Whoever designed the AI has used an organic base.”

“You mean, they’ve taken a real living alien and made them into a monster.” Alex inspected the exoskeleton where Kara had ripped it away, spying a line of original cuts that had been made. She presumed that it was in order to insert the reinforced alloy that dented under Supergirl’s punch. 

“Like a regular Mary Shelley story,” she murmured, running her gloved fingertip along the scarring. 

Except in this case, Dr Frankenstein was Jeremiah Danvers. She reached out, tipping the Ziova’s chin towards her, looking into its blank, dead eyes. This poor creature, tortured and maimed for Cadmus. She gestured for an agent to lift the ripped exoskeleton away, and then ran her gaze over the circuitry underneath. The wires had now been cut and the boards were incomplete from where technicians had been investigating. 

Could these be her father’s designs?

“Have you encountered things like this before?” Brainy asked.

“Yeah, but this is more…” She bent her knees, observing the flat plane of the circuitry. “The production value is way higher.” She brushed her fingertip over a fuse, the crude appearance of Metallo twigging for a second before she shook her head. “These are professionally designed and manufactured.”

“Your suspicions are correct,” Brainy said. “In fact-

A knock at the lab door interrupted him. Agent Cavanaugh gave an apologetic look, saying, “Ma’am, you have a visitor.”

Alex reached for the elastic of her gloves. “Is it important?”

Agent Cavanaugh opened and closed his mouth, and then nodded. “I think it might be, Ma’am.”

“It’s fine. I’ll give you a full report later,” Brainy said. “I’m still tallying up some of the data.” 

“Thanks,” Alex replied, tearing off her gloves and popping them into a hazardous bin. She trailed Cavanaugh out onto the walkway. “Who is it?”

He scratched at his stubble. “See for yourself, Ma’am.”

Alex leaned over the edge of the balcony, taking in the figure in front of the command centre. Suddenly, she was a fish out of water, flopping helplessly on the deck.

“Maggie.”

~

After flying to London and back, and then buzzing around the city for a while, Kara had been too wired to sleep, and she was paying for it now. To make matters worse, Noonan’s temporary closure meant a lack of sticky buns to help ease her morning.

Seeing that she had already surpassed the word limit she had set to reach before noon, Kara decided to take a break. She rose and stretched, and then made her way out of her office towards the main CatCo newsroom. 

On her way to the watercooler, she noticed Lena in her office. She was joined by a tall, red headed man, who was saying something to make her laugh. Kara’s lips quirked into a sad smile as she poured her water. While the relationship between Lena and Supergirl had destabilised, the chasm between her identities growing larger, Kara still believed that her friend deserved to be charmed. She didn’t laugh nearly as much as she should. 

She picked up a British accent, and her smile grew more genuine as she returned to her office. 

Still maintaining her break, she clicked onto an article by Katherine Burnley that had been making waves on social media all morning:  _ Two Years on from the Alien Amnesty Act, what has changed in National City?  _ it read. She scrolled down the page, reading as she went. While Burnley was more or less competition, she agreed with the points being made. 

Then she reached the comments section. 

**_LP1997_ ** :  _ Sure this is all great but what about the justice for victims? _

Kara sighed, unsure if she wanted to read the threads after all. She knew there would be backlash against any pro-alien stance, and wasn’t sure she had enough energy for the tide of hatred she knew would drown her screen. 

She sipped her water, and continued down. She was floored at what she found.

**_fourS4M:_ ** _ Aliens should be welcome in our city dont get why ppl hate them theres bad humans too _

**_Btsfan62:_ ** _ Nothing will ever change unless driftwood is exposed _

**_PurrfectZeep:_ ** _ What about justice for the 16? _

Puzzled, Kara read further, finding similar messages about justice, 16 lives lost, and outrage about something called Operation Driftwood. She sat up, glancing at her door, before opening another tab and searching the name. 

What she found was forum after forum, mosty pro-alien aligned, discussing an incident involving the DEO four years ago. Some users claimed to have been there, some gave locations, others mourned the supposed 16 lives that had been taken. 

Kara was aware that the DEO had been an open secret in the alien community, a menace they feared until attitudes within the organisation changed, but this open discussion was something she had not encountered before. 

She sat back in her chair, tracing back through the memories. Four years ago, she was on the verge of saving a plane and changing her life forever, but not quite  _ there _ yet. She hadn’t even known Alex was DEO, let alone been aware of what they did.   

Eventually, she closed the pages and went back to her own work, making a mental note to visit Alex at lunch time. 

~

“Maggie.”

She spun as Alex descended the stairs.  “Hey Dan- woah.” 

Maggie drank in Alex’s figure, seeing the suit for the first time. “Jesus, Agent Danvers.” She tipped her head. “Or is it Director Danvers, now?”

Alex had never possessed a good poker face. She wanted to hug her, but they were back on home turf, and somehow that meant the boundaries were stricter than they had been when they were on a different continent. 

Her hands danced around her waist. “When did you…?”

“Just got back.” Maggie held up the briefcase, patting the leather, and then swung it back by her side. “Well, I went home, showered, ate, tried to sleep but realised I was really badly jetlagged, called my captain, and got Kara to drop off my bags first.” 

Alex’s eyes flicked down and back up. “And the briefcase?”

“Brought you back a present,” Maggie said, smirking as Alex’s expression lit up with excitement at the prospect of a real result. 

“What’s in it?”

“Maps, locations, weapon blueprints, game plans.” She grinned at Alex’s reaction, almost as if she truly was handing over the perfect souvenir. “And that’s only the blurb.” 

“We should get on this,” Alex insisted, looking around. “Do you have time now?”

“I’ve gotta debrief my captain and a higher up in an hour, but I can come by after.”

“Sounds fine. We can…” She faltered, playing with a ribbed shoulder pad. “Sorry, I don’t mean to push into your investigation.”

“That’s a change,” Maggie quipped, tightening her grip on the leather handle. “It’s fine. This is one where we’re gonna need to cross wires.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, there’s already been a few incidents that I need to catch you up on.”

Maggie’s temples gave a twinge, refreshing the memory of the pill. “Speaking of catching up, I had to use your parting gift.”

“Oh?” Alex said, stunned as she deciphered the euphemism. “ _ Oh. _ ”

“Yup.”

Alex bit the inside of her cheek. “In that case, do you mind coming for a few check ups?”

Again, they toed the line. Maggie nodded. “Sure.”

Alex waved them towards the stairs, and Maggie concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other instead of how insanely good the new suit looked. Agents parted easily around them, the new director breezing around with a new authority. Maggie’s hand began to sweat around the handle.

“What happened?” Alex asked. 

“I was checking out a warehouse in London when I walked in on two men discussing a shipment going to National City. One of them mentioned Lillian, and it clicked.” 

“A shipment?” Alex frowned as they reached the top of the stairs. “Did you get any names?”

“Just one. Colkirk.”

“Okay.” Obviously, the name wasn’t familiar to Alex either. “Then what?”

“Then I was found by a third guy, and they were about to worm me-” Alex stopped immediately, eyes wide, and Maggie waved away her concern. “It’s fine. I took the drug, tripped, and was thankfully left un-wormed.” She chuckled, and they continued along the walkway. “I woke up and found that I’d struck gold.”

They paused outside the medbay, Alex frowning at the briefcase. “It could be false information.”

Maggie’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t even think of that.”

Alex shrugged, entering the bay. Maggie set the briefcase on a bed. “Guess we’ll just have to comb through it and find out.” She gestured for her to sit.

Maggie hopped up, watching Alex gather instruments and place them carefully in a tray. Her movements were stiff, and Maggie fretted at the fact that their last interaction, when Alex had treated the wound on her stomach, had been so harsh. 

“I thought it was poison, you know,” she admitted. 

Alex looked over at her with an owlish expression. “You can’t seriously believe I’d let you die?”

Maggie toyed with her watch. “What was it, exactly?”

Shuffling over, Alex set the tray down at Maggie’s hip and wrapped a cuff around her bicep. They both chose to ignore the goosebumps that appeared at the brush of contact. “A mixture between the physical and the, uh, psychedelic.”

Maggie watched as she set up a monitor, and then put on plastic gloves. “Okay…”

“The human subconscious is extremely powerful and, in cases of severe mental trauma, it can…” Alex searched for the words as she prepared a needle and a vial. “Hide a person, I suppose.”

Maggie watched as her statistics began to chart on the screen. “Like catatonia, right?”

“Yeah, right, like that.” Alex gently swabbed the inside of an elbow, and Maggie kept her eye trained on the rhythm of her heartbeat, wondering if it was going to accelerate. Wondering if she could stop it. “I started looking into the possibilities of dual action drugs, one which could keep a person in a physical state similar to catatonia, while taking their conscious elsewhere, away from any torture that was being enacted upon them.”

“Oh yeah, I tripped.” Maggie closed her eyes, trying not to think about the Met uniform, or Alex’s new suit, or how the familiar scent of her perfume kicked the beeping tempo of the monitor up a notch. “I tripped...hard.”

“See anything interesting?”

Maggie cracked open one eyelid, the needle nipping at her arm as Alex slipped it in. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Alex blushed, drawing the gauge up. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get to fully test the negative side effects. Like any hallucinogenic, if you aren’t in the right frame of mind…” The vial full, she pressed a cotton ball into the crook of Maggie’s elbow and drew the needle out. “Any nightmares?”

Maggie took over holding the cotton wool. “Well, yeah, it got pretty intense.”

“I’m sorry. I knew if I told the truth, you’d never take it.”

“Oh, really?” She tapped her badge with her free hand. “I can’t imagine why I would have refused.”

“You know I never play by the rules when it matters.” Alex gave a coy smile as she put the vial in the tray and wandered over to the work bench. “For the record, I’m glad you’re okay,” she threw back.

Maggie looked down at her arm, checking if she was still bleeding. “Actually, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, Danvers.”

Alex turned, about to ask a question, when an agent came to the doorway. 

“A wellbeing concern has been raised about one of the inmates, Ma’am. One of the Vaafala has collapsed.”

With a sigh, Alex followed him out to the walkway, and then seemed to remember Maggie on the bed. She poked her head back in. “This will take five minutes. You can meet me back downstairs.”

Maggie glanced at her watch. “So we’re done in here?” At Alex’s nod, she said, “Okay, I’ll meet you down there.”  

And then Alex was gone. Maggie mused at the new role, the change in dynamics she had witnessed. Now, Alex had to sign off on every decision, shoulder much more responsibility. She wondered how she was handling being in charge in the back lines. 

Maggie uncuffed herself, and dabbed at the inside of her elbow. 

“Maggie.” 

She looked up to find Supergirl standing in the entry, half-in and half-out, as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to enter. 

“Kara.” 

“How are you?”

“Good…” 

There had been a stiffness about Kara during the flight back from London. She hadn’t spoken at all apart from a few terse affirmations, and Maggie was resigned to the fact that she probably didn’t have anything she wanted to say. 

Now, it looked like Kara was going to burst. 

“You clearly have something to say to me,” Maggie said, nonchalant. 

“I heard what happened in Switzerland,” Kara said, finally crossing the threshold, “And other places.”

“I thought that would have been obvious from the fact you found us sharing a room with a single bed.” Maggie set her feet on the floor, standing and fixing her shirt. “Cause neither of us were sleeping on the floor.”

“Whose choice was that?” Kara stepped closer, arms tense at her sides. “Did you even think about Alex?”

“Hey, I didn’t force Alex into any situation that she didn’t want.”

“I’m- I’m not  _ saying _ that,” Kara backtracked, running a hand into her hair, “I just don’t want Alex to get hurt. We both know she’s easily led.”

Maggie grabbed the briefcase from the bed. “You know, you aren’t your sister’s keeper, Kara.”

“No, I’m not. Alex is an adult. What she does and who she does it with is her business.” She squared her shoulders and her jaw. “But it is my business if she’s in any pain or distress.” 

“What are you accusing me of?”

“Nothing. Just…” Kara looked her up and down. “Don’t play around with her.”

Maggie tucked her chin against her chest, already on her way out of the lab as she muttered a simple, “Noted.”

~

The Vaafala had come down with a mystery illness, and Alex sighed, knowing they would have to begin reviewing their policies about containment and the health risks to certain species. She found Kara and Maggie at the command centre, far apart, the briefcase braced between them. 

Maggie seemed more introverted now, and the atmosphere was tense as she joined them around the circular table. She wanted to know what exactly had been said between them, but decided it could wait. 

“I’ve made copies of everything that I need to show at the debriefing, so you can keep this,” Maggie said, not looking at her as she slid the leather case over. 

Alex took it, noticing the darkness under Maggie’s eyes for the first time. “Aren’t you exhausted?”

Maggie’s lips quirked. “Still on GMT. I’m gonna crash sometime around 2pm.”

Kara circled around as Alex opened the case, rifling through the contents. Maggie was right; it was a treasure trove of information that they would spend a long time sorting through. This was more than a breakthrough, this was a gold mine.  

She flipped the case closed, clasping it. Then she narrowed her eyes at Kara. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Kara glanced at Maggie, who was still hovering. “I wanted to ask you something.” 

Interpreting the look as a dismissal, Maggie nodded. “Well, I better-”

Kara put out a hand. “Actually, can you stay for this?”

Alex watched the play between them with a mixture of interest and embarrassment, the words unsaid between the trio making conversation stiff. 

“Sure,” Maggie said.

“I was reading Katherine Burnley’s article about it being almost two years since the Alien Amnesty Act, and whether things have changed in National City,” Kara said, “In the comments there was something about Operation Driftwood. Have either of you heard of it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Operation…” Alex glanced at the briefcase. “Like military? Like Cadmus?”

“I searched for it, but all that came up was a bunch of forums, most of them chatrooms for alien rights.” Kara braced her hands on her hips, looking around at the agents pottering about. “It said that Driftwood was an incident involving the DEO.”

“What?” Alex challenged, “Kara, are you sure this wasn’t some weird made up urban legend?”

“No, the forums are pretty convinced.” Kara crossed her arms over her stomach. “Whatever it is, Alex, it’s not positive.”

Alex narrowed her eyes and moved to inquire further when Maggie spoke up. “I buy it.”

The betrayal must have been plain on her face, because Maggie grimaced. “You guys aren’t too fondly thought of in certain areas, okay? I mean, sure it’s just a forum, so it’s probably just some guys hiding behind their usernames spreading lies but...” 

At the silence from both Danvers sisters, she made a show of looking at her watch. “Shoot. I gotta go.”

“I’ll run your blood and review the data from the cuff,” Alex said, “Call me after the debriefing.”

Maggie clicked her fingers and then made a hasty exit, and Alex pinched the bridge of her nose. A surprise visit from the detective, who had now transitioned from ex-fiancee to on again off again romance, had destabilised her focus, and to make matters worse, she could feel the need to object rolling off of Kara in waves.

“Don’t,” Alex warned, lifting the briefcase from the table. “If you get any more information on Driftwood, let me know, okay?”

She didn’t let Kara reply before she stalked off.

~

The first specimen was too bulky, clumsy for what he had planned. The second, too frail, with its waspish body. He surveyed the third, with its dozen legs and many more beady eyes, and turned up his nose. 

Colkirk looked up at Bradshaw, who was running final checks on another hybrid. “Are these beings going to be fully sentient? Like Cyborg Superman?”

“Little late to ask that,” Bradshaw remarked, adjusting the settings on the model. 

“Well, when I saw what they could do in the controlled lab, I thought that they were fully automated.” He crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Putting financial and political gain before common sense?” 

Colkirk scoffed. “You’re lucky that you’re necessary, Bradshaw.” 

The Cadmus agent laughed, closing the tablet over. “I got confirmation twenty minutes ago that the second batch has docked in Liverpool.”

“All set to sail on Tuesday?”

“All set,” Bradshaw confirmed, rounding the hybrid to join Colkirk. “Cyborg Superman was scrapped, wasn’t he?”

“Again, no long necessary. Hank Henshaw was only the beginning.” Colkirk tapped his fingers against his bicep. He looked around the batch, choosing like a child in a sweet shop. “Dr Danvers has been doing much more advanced work since then.”

He spotted a larger mass hidden under crimson tarp, and moved over to it. He gestured for Bradshaw to pull off the covering. The agent did so, revealing a winged beast with thick scales. His mind lit up with glee as he took in the hybrid’s bulging muscles, wondering what damage it could cause.

“This model is, in fact, programmable,” Bradshaw explained, running his hand over the creature’s flat head. “We can give it a location as a target.”

Colkirk also put his hand out, also stroking along the head. The scales were slick and cool. “The sailing,” he said, “Has Pearson and Lafferty boarded yet?” 

Bradshaw checked his tablet, swiping through the information on the registration page. “Not yet, sir.”

“Okay.” While Colkirk didn’t really expect any issues with the men holding the briefcase, something niggled at him. He stood back, eyes sweeping over the alien. “Shall we see how one of these work?”

“I know that Mrs Luthor has given you the go ahead to use any of the hybrids.” Bradshaw gave a withering look at the hybrid in question. “But are you sure you want to begin with one as large as this?”

Colkirk gave a toothy grin, loosening his tie. 

“Why not? I think it’s time we gave National City’s boys in blue a bit of a shake up, don’t you?”

~

An aerial photograph of a section of London docks was pinned in the centre of the board. Surrounding it were similar shots from Maasrichem, Nororlond, Alacrucia and Matersa, as well as a number of other photographs that she had pulled and printed from her phone before the meeting.

Maggie traced the red circle she had drawn in thick marker, and then tapped its centre like a bullseye. “...and here is where I encountered Colkirk handing over the briefcase to the other two men.” 

She turned to face Captain Krasney and Commissioner Armstrong, the latter’s expression being the one she was more interested in. When she reported that her raid on a murder suspect had dug up a document holding the tip off about Lillian escaping to Europe, he had been the one who had contacted her about chasing down Cadmus overseas. Having gotten wind of the accidental find, he offered her the opportunity to shut down Cadmus once and for all. 

Armstrong crossed one ankle over the other as he leaned back against the conference table. “And Oslo?”

“We believed we had missed something in Norway when we crossed it off the original document that I had found here in National City,” Maggie explained, “I planned to double back after I was done in London.”

“We?” her captain prompted. 

Maggie shared a look with the Commissioner, who nodded for her to disclose their secret. “I took someone with me to Europe.” She paused, fingers clasping her wrist, like a school child facing her principal. “It was Alex Danvers, sir.”

Her captain narrowed his eyes at the news. “The new DEO director, Alex Danvers?” He glanced at the board and then stood straighter, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your  _ ex _ , Alex Danvers?”

Armstrong put a gentling hand on his shoulder. “I approved the funds.” 

“We had a conversation when before I left,” Maggie explained, hating the disgruntled look on her captain’s face that she hadn’t come to him first, “I knew that our primary objective was to take down Cadmus operations in National City, which will eventually require the help of the DEO. Also, I’m…” She hesitated, but pressed on, “I’m aware that Director Danvers has a personal connection with someone within the organisation.”

Captain Krasney raised an eyebrow. “Wanted to give her a chance to get them out before things take a turn?”

“Well, with all due respect, Captain,” the Commissioner said dryly, “I don’t think it’s going to take a turn anytime soon.”  

Maggie nodded and shifted back to the board. “Right. Cadmus’ connections and strength are far beyond what we thought. They’re global, which means they have global aims.”

Krasney sauntered up to the bulletin board, hands in his pockets. Maggie watched the twitch of his brow as he scanned the range of information on the board. He stroked a finger over a picture of the mill in Maasrichem. “This is beyond our resources.”

“Be that as it may, there are local consequences if we do not try and battle our way through somehow.” Armstrong joined them at the board, the trio scanning over the images. “Myself and others in the state have reasons to believe that Cadmus have their claws in Harrison Cross’ campaign for governor.”

Maggie scratched the side of her neck, and turned away at the news. Suddenly, the swift agreement to her travel and her companion made sense. “That’s pretty local.”

Harrison Cross was known for his anti-alien views, and while his poll numbers were growing incrementally, they weren’t nearly as low as she had hoped they would be. While Maggie knew that for each step forward of progress, there was half a step backwards with the backlash, it didn’t bode well for the future of alien rights if a man like Harrison Cross could campaign and win in a state like California. Not with Supergirl as the supposed champion of National City, and the poster girl for positive alien-human relations. 

“My wife is a Tarzakian,” Commissioner Armstrong announced. “My two daughters and my son are half and half. They’re human-passing, but I’m not sure semantics matter to these people.”

Maggie left the men at the board as they got a closer look at the photographs she had presented, and moved to the window. On the fifth floor, she couldn’t see far, the concrete of other skyscrapers blocking out the sky. What she could see was a  _ Vote Cross for State Governor _ banner, multiple stories long, draped down the side of National City’s bank.

Something caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a bumblebee, but as it grew larger, she made out a black mass weaving in and out between distant buildings. 

Backing away from the window, she caught translucent wings, an arching neck, and a spiked tail. 

All heading straight for her. 

“Uh, Captain,” she uttered, hand inching towards her weapon as the flying alien stalled and hovered a block away. The men flanked her as the black shape beat its wings. 

“Good God,” Krasney cried. Then, the alien gunned for the precinct, closing the distance in a matter of seconds.

Maggie’s eyes widened as the creature got close enough that she could see its thick scales. “That thing looks like a-” 

The alien bashed against the building, shaking the floor. Upstairs, they heard muffled screams of terror, glass shattering and a mighty roar. 

“Get out,” Maggie barked, drawing her gun, “Both of you, get out.”

Captain Krasney looked at her in surprise. “What about-?”

“Get out, and get my squad down here.” Her gaze darted around, searching for an idea. “Get the DEO down here, too!”

Hierarchy forgotten, the two men rushed to the door, and Maggie locked it behind them. She jammed it with a chair, and them dragged another towards one of the full length windows. 

Upstairs, the alien howled, and she watched its tail whipping this way and that. She threw the chair as hard as she could at the window, cracking it diagonally. She lifted it and swung it again, this time smashing it right through. 

The alien was knocked back in surprise, and she felt the gust of air from its wings as it flew out from the building. The wings flapped as it lowered itself in the air, and yellow, serpentine eyes were fixed on her.

Suddenly, jetlag was the last thing that Maggie felt.

~

Kara had just put her earpiece back in after a mid-day meeting when she was greeted with Agent Cavanaugh urging her to go to the NCPD, stating that it was at Director Danvers’ insistence that she go  _ now _ .

She shot out of CatCo and raced towards the precinct. She made the links fairly easily; Alex was ordering her towards the NCPD, where an alien was attacking, which meant the Science Division might be handling it, which meant Maggie Sawyer was in danger. She swallowed down the bitter thoughts that appeared when she thought about the situation between Maggie and her sister, and concentrated on the task at hand. 

Apparently, switching over was easy. Kara pulled up short as she saw the huge, lizard like creature squirming its way into a broken window on the fifth floor. It was familiar, somehow, but she didn’t linger on the thought, launching herself towards the window and grabbing one wing. 

Before it could react, she wrenched the alien from the window, swinging and throwing it as far as she could. It tumbled away through the air, roaring in protest as it flapped to regain its height. 

Kara ducked into the conference room, seeing chaos; tossed chairs, a splintered murderboard, and a pine table overturned on its side like a shield. It had a jagged crack down the centre.

“Hello?” she called.

Maggie popped her head up from behind the table. “Took you long enough.”

Kara rushed over, hunkering behind the conference table with her. “Maggie, are you okay?”

The alien crashed back, its neck snaking in the broken window, shoulder bashing at the frame and knocking any remaining shards inside the room. Talons clawed at the carpet, the fibres tearing.

“There’s a goddamn dragon, what do you think?” Maggie shrieked. 

“It’s not a-” Kara rolled away as it snapped towards them, cracking the table in half. “You know what, it can wait.”

The alien wormed into the tight space and lashed its tail towards her. Maggie sprinted the length of the room, getting a number of shots off. It hissed, emerald blood seeping from the small wounds.  

“What now?” she asked, standing by Kara’s side, facing down the alien.

“Honestly?” Kara asked, pausing to use her heat vision to keep it from coming any closer. “This alien, I recognise it, but-”

Maggie aimed, catching it right between the eyes. It screeched, lumbering deeper into the room. With a few huffs, it hunched under the low ceiling, yellow eyes fiery as they fixed on the pair. 

“I was trying to distract it,” Maggie explained, grabbing a chair and chucking it, trying to buy them more time. “It got in upstairs, and I figured I could hold it off on hurting anyone before you got here.”

The chair caught the alien’s broad shoulder, and it snorted in irritation before opening its jaws and ripping a chunk of the table. It swung its neck, firing the debris towards them. Kara barely had time to pull Maggie against her and cover them with her cape. The table rebounded off, crashing to the floor. 

The alien circled around, flicking its tongue out. Kara realised too late that they had lost control of the room. It advanced, pushing them outwards. Her mind whirred, choosing her next move, as they backed away. 

Then, she heard the crunch of glass and a gasp of surprise. 

Maggie had lost her footing, and was wheeling back. Her hair billowed at the draft from the broken window. Unbalanced and tipping backwards, Kara saw the whites of her eyes as the hand not holding her gun scrabbled at the window frame. 

_ She’s going to fall- _

The detective’s boots slid on the broken glass, and she cried out-

“Hold on!” Kara yelled. 

With a leap, she tackled Maggie straight out of the window.  

~

Her gun fell the five stories, and she squeezed her eyes shut, fully expecting to meet the same fate as the ground left her feet. But Kara’s hold was secure. They reorientated upright, looking back towards the precinct building, where the alien whipped around, snapping and launching out towards them.  

“Hold on,” Kara repeated, before diving towards the streets below. 

Maggie squeaked, gripping the red cape in both hands as Kara spiralled them downwards. The blood rushed to her head, and she muttered out spitfire prayers, sure she was dead.

At the last minute, Kara pulled up, surging back towards the conference room. The change in pressure had Maggie’s stomach churning.

“My gun!” she shouted, wind whistling in her ears. 

“Get the fire extinguisher!” Kara ordered, shoving her onto her feet and spinning, bracing herself for the alien’s return. 

Stumbling with dizziness, Maggie grabbed the extinguisher and ripped it off the bracket. She fumbled with the top, and dipped into her swimming thoughts, trying to recall what the acronym  _ P.A.S.S. _ stood for...

“Distract it!” Kara yelled, shooting away as the alien collided with the precinct once again. 

It was riled up, opening its jaws and baring its dagger-like teeth. Maggie yanked the pin from the extinguisher, aiming the nozzle and spraying a gush of powdered agent at the alien. It reared back, giving Kara enough time to leap onto its back, getting its head into a tight lock. 

And then a twist, and then-

The snap ricocheted off the walls of the conference room, and then Maggie jumped backwards as the alien thumped, lifeless, on to the carpeted floor. Her eyes trailed back up in alarm to find Kara stood on the alien’s back, holding its head. Wires hung from the neck, dangling down. 

“Was that thing a damn  _ robot _ ?” she choked.

“No,” Kara said, turning the large head upwards and inspecting the torn flesh. “Another hybrid.”

Maggie’s vision blurred for a second, adrenaline wearing off. She smoothed a hand over her face, reeling from the brief flight she had taken. “Two aerial trips in twenty four hours. I’m beginning to think that holding me close is a Danvers trait.”

At Kara’s warning glare, Maggie shrugged and dropped the extinguisher to the floor with a thud. “Sorry, jetlag. Lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of…” She waved a hand. “Sense.”

She received a nod of understanding, and then righted one of the chairs to drop into. The murderboard had seen its last day, the photographs thrown around her feet. Maasrichem, Alacrucia, Matersa; all scattered on the floor. Maggie couldn’t help but feel it was fitting. 

“This doesn’t make sense.” Kara cradled the alien’s head. “This species...it’s from Snarz.”

“As in Mars?” Kara shot her another sharp look, and Maggie wiped the smirk away. “Again, sorry. Snarz?”

“It’s a nickname for the planet, since its beings aren’t advanced enough for travel. Snarz is a huge swamp, without civilisation or technology.”

“Wait, aren’t advanced enough for travel?” Maggie echoed, frowning at the twitching alien on the floor of the ruined conference room, its blood staining green splodges onto the carpet.

“All of the races are reptile-like aliens,” Kara said. “With scales, and lizard-minds. I don’t understand how one got to Earth.”

Maggie got up and sauntered over, pushing at a webbed wing with her boot. “Trafficking?”

“Maybe.”

“The DEO should be on their way but maybe they should get a heads up.” Already with her phone in her hand, Maggie opened her contacts. “I’ll call Alex-”

“ _ I’ll _ call Alex,” Kara interjected, reinforced with steel.

Rather than get into a scrap with a kryptonian who was holding a decapitated head, Maggie bowed her head in acquiescence, returning her phone to her pocket. “Sure. Let me know how that goes.”

Dislodging the chair from under the handle, Maggie unlocked the door and opened it. Immediately, a dozen cops raised their weapons. They looked like they were going to wet themselves. She blinked and then stepped forward. 

One officer’s gun was trembling, and she reached out with two fingers to lower it. “It’s okay, Jenkins. The girls have got this.”

She wormed her way past them in silence, and moved towards the elevator. The stitches on her stomach that Alex had sewn a week before were throbbing, directly impacted by Kara’s spear-tackle. They had been red and sore the last day and a half, and Maggie thought that might have something to do with lying in a cold, damp warehouse tripping on a hallucinogenic for a night. Either way, she needed them checked. 

A thought flirted with her; she wanted to call Alex up to check them herself, but she knew she had to heed Kara’s warning about playing  _ that _ game.

Instead, she slumped against the elevator wall, resigning herself to a trip to the ER.

~

Colkirk kept his eyes in the direction of the precinct as he stared out from the rented office building. He couldn’t make out much detail as the attack unfolded, but it was enough to see the smashed windows on the fifth and sixth floor, the hybrid’s broad wings flapping around until Supergirl inevitably showed and subdued it. 

He unclasped his silver cufflinks, slipping them into his pocket and rolling up his sleeves as he wandered over to where Bradshaw was watching news feeds on multiple monitors. He unmuted the police scanner, and they listened as the NCPD responded to the internal attack.  

He lowered himself into a leather chair, feeling more or less victorious. 

After twenty minutes of watching the news break over various stations, Bradshaw took off his headset and swung his chair around. “No one was hurt or killed, sir. And the DEO have another one of our hybrids to dissect.”

“No one needed to be hurt. This needed to be a non-event. Alien attacks NCPD, National City’s finest contain the threat,” Colkirk replied, elbows on his knees, “So next time, when there are casualties, people can look back and ask themselves...” 

He inched forward, posing the question as a news reporter might, “Could we have prevented this?”

Bradshaw nodded slowly, understanding. “And what can we do to make sure it never happens again?”

“Precisely.” Colkirk sat back, satisfied, lacing his hands behind his head. “A vote for Cross.”

“Cross, and whoever comes next,” Bradshaw reminded him, lifting the headset again.

“Well, we need to get Cross elected first. He’s the experiment. And if he’s successful, well...”

He imagined the victory rally that Cross would give, and others after him. Seats all over the country in the next election would be filled with politicians who pressed forward with an anti-alien agenda, who filled the airwaves with fear. A country that feared aliens would be a country that invested in  _ Airedale Consulta _ , and would line his pockets with green. 

He closed his eyes, fantasising as he often did about his first invite to Washington, about the first acknowledgement of his rise to power, to influence, hidden behind the public faces of the Congressmen.  

“We get him elected, Bradshaw, and it’s game on for the rest.”

~

**_Leefside, Scotland_ **

The match played on the muted television in the corner, the only sound in the musty pub being the soft snores of a nineteen year old asleep behind the bar. Two men entered, their eagle-like glare roaming around the mostly empty space.

They approached the bar, where Philip Thomas Colkirk was helping himself to another free pint at the sleeping worker’s expense. 

“If you want something, take it,” he said, glancing at the sleeping youth.

“Are you Philip Colkirk?” the taller man asked. 

“Next time you call me Philip, you’re getting a scrap,” he growled, not looking up at the two men as he raised the tap. “It’s Tom. Who’s asking?”

“You look like your brother,” the other noted, planting his elbows on the bar. “He said you were floating about Leefside somewhere. We came up to look for you, and heard you’d been banned from the other four pubs in town.”

Tom slowly put his pint on top of the bar, seriously regarding the men now. One wore a blue rain coat zipped to the neck, the other a long sleeved Irish Rugby shirt. Both men had backpacks. 

“You work for my brother,” he said coolly.

“We  _ worked  _ for your brother,” corrected the man in the coat.

“Who are you?” 

The man in the coat replied, “I’m Pearson, he’s Lafferty.”

Unease shivered through each of Tom’s bones. “You get fired?”

Pearson exchanged a glance with his partner, before unzipping the pocket of his coat. He extracted a manila envelope, crudely folded four times, and placed it on the bar. Then he took his backpack off his shoulder, lifting that onto the bartop too.  

“We were told we were gonna be heavies for your brother, and that’s that,” Pearson explained. 

“And then your brother got us involved in a death,” Lafferty finished.

Tom’s attention fixed on the envelope, and then the backpack, and then the dark glares of the men across the bar. “What happened?”

They told him a story of a woman in London, of their realisation that whatever Colkirk had signed them up for was much more dangerous and deadly than they imagined, and how a free ride to America was not worth espionage and being implicated in a woman’s death. 

Tom studied his pint, running his knuckle along the condensation on the glass. “You said she just…topped herself?”

“Right in front of us,” Lafferty confirmed.

“You got no details, there was no ID, nothing?” Tom asked.

“She was carrying a bag but it was just maps and supplies.” Pearson shrugged. “I’m guessing the rest was in her hotel room, if she had one.”

“I mean, she couldn’t have travelled without a passport, at least.” Tom looked at the youth, still sleeping on the job, then at the silenced television, and once around the bar, double-checking that they were indeed the only patrons. “Unless she was putting on an accent.”

“A nutter?” Pearson suggested.

“In my experience, there’s always bagheads ready to throw themselves in the Thames.” He shrugged. “So, why did you come find me?”

“Do you know what your brother is involved in?”

Tom scratched his head. The last time he had seen his brother was almost eight months ago, at their father’s funeral. They didn’t have the fondest relationship, but then again, they hadn’t really been on good terms since they were kids. After the service, Andrew had accused him of turning his back on their family, and Tom had thrown back that Andrew seizing power of the family company before their father’s body was cold made him disgusted to be there. 

Tom was sick of the estate, of battling about their fortune. He wanted to take his inheritance in the will and cut ties completely, only being talked down by his mother. For him, the funeral had been a farce, a gesture for the elite and the aristocracy only. 

He shook his head, and Pearson picked up the manila envelope, tearing open the top. “We’re supposed to be getting on a transport used by a group called Cadmus on Tuesday. A ton of frozen alien hybrids are being shipped out, and we’re supposed to be helping supervise.” 

Pearson pulled out a series of black and white devices, setting them on the bar, like figurines for display. “You’re gonna take one of our places.” 

“What are these?” Tom asked. 

“They’re electronic tags that will identify you as one of us, and get you on the boat.”

“God, a boat?” Tom reached for the smallest of the bunch. It was shaped like a rounded guitar pick, all matte black. He turned it over in his fingertips, finding white writing in lettering that he didn’t recognise. 

“No visas, no passports, no questions. Free pass into the States, courtesy of Mrs Luthor.”

Tom’s lip curled at the name. “That guy Lex’s mother? Is that who Andy is working with?”

“Yeah, we figured you’d be like that,” Lafferty said. “We think you should go and have a word with your brother.”

Tom caught the subtext, and nodded.“Oh, I’ll have a word. What’s next for the two of you?” 

“We have older contacts that can help us start fresh,” Lafferty said, slipping his hands into his pockets. 

“Dublin is hot for snot right now, and you know what the Guards are like,” Pearson said gruffly.

Tom huffed. “As good a place as any.”

“Cadmus uniform is in the bag. Wear it when you’re on the boat. If you have any issues with travel or anyone questions who you are, you say you work directly for your brother,” Pearson said, “Travel information is on this USB.” He tapped a fingertip to one of the black and white devices. 

Tom nodded, and the two men left without another word, the bar descending into stillness. He surveyed all that was in front of him, listening to the snoozing youth. He unzipped the backpack and lifted out a navy uniform. He wrung out the jumpsuit, narrowing his eyes. By eye, he could tell it would be a little short around the ankles, but it would do.  

A brand new start was exactly what he needed. He could withdraw a chunk of his inheritance in cash, get it changed into dollars, and figure the rest out when he got to the States. 

He thought of his brother’s smug face, about that woman in London, about what the news had reported regarding the Luthors, and he clenched his fist closed around the device. 

“Maybe it’s about time I paid Andy a visit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know all your thoughts, or hmu @santonaranja


	4. 4x04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connections are made, plotty things happen, Sanvers tension goes up a notch...

She wasn’t used to sitting back and watching, but in this situation, she needed to.

Perched like a gargoyle on a gothic chapel, Kara surveyed the scene from the rooftop. Guardian was battling three armed robbers at the mouth of the bank, though fortunately they hadn’t been able to get a single shot off yet. The getaway driver had long since cleared out, leaving the three men empty handed and stranded to face Guardian’s wrath.

Kara eased down onto the ledge of the rooftop, swinging her legs as she caught sight of James’ motorcycle. The absence of the van was a reminder that Winn wasn’t here anymore, his presence sorely missed. He had worn a boyish grin the entire way through his goodbyes, excited at the prospect of going on his own adventure with the Legion. She hoped he was doing well.  

Guardian disarmed the last robber, kicking him to the ground with his two accomplices, who were already rolling and groaning on the steps of the bank.  

Earlier that afternoon Nia, in her attempt to break into the office gossip market, had asked Kara why James and Lena had broken up, and whether it was even ethical that they had dated in the first place. But Kara had rebuffed the topic, not wanting to bad mouth either of her friends, even if things had grown rather fraught. The last time she had tried to intervene and help Guardian, James had snapped at her, still raw from his breakup. 

In the distance, the boom and rumble of a gas explosion sounded, and then a crackle as Agent Cavanaugh’s voice spoke into her ear.  _ “Supergirl, there’s a report of an explosion on-” _

“Already on my way,” she interrupted. With a sigh, she pushed off the ledge and soared off into the sky.

~

She wound the stray hairs from her ponytail around her finger, tilting this way and that. The sharp cut of the suit, crisp white blouse, and modest black heels were the perfect costume. Now she just had to play her part. 

Maggie stepped back from the elevator mirror. The cunning business mogul wasn’t the worst disguise she had ever donned, but it was still beyond her comfort zone. 

“How does Kara do this everyday?” she muttered, adjusting the thin rimmed- and false- glasses on her nose. 

The elevator slowed to a stop, pinged, and she took a deep breath, continuing to channel Kara as she plastered a sunny smile on her face. The open-plan room had couches along the wall and a number of corridors leading off from it. A stocky man in a blue suit stood in the centre, scribbling at a clipboard. 

With one last glance at her watch, Maggie approached. “You’re doing the viewings for the offices, right?” 

The man blinked in surprise, tucking his clipboard under his arm and holding out his hand. “Yes, are you…?”

“Yes!” she breathed, shaking his hand enthusiastically, “Hi, I’m Cynthia.”

“Cynthia, hi, I’m Tony,” he replied, flashing pearly white teeth, “I was going to come down-”

“Oh, it’s fine, really.” She waved her hands around, adjusting the false frames. “I’m a little early and I know you’ve probably been showing other prospective renters around.”

“It’s been a busy day,” he admitted, pulling out the clipboard and taking a pen from the top, “Let’s see, you’re here to see about a 6 month lease?”

“Possibly,” she said, rubbing her palms together, “We’re optimistic about the first 6 months, but anything longer is all based on the market.”

“Understandable.” He beckoned her towards one of the corridors offshooting from the open area. “This isn’t the easiest city to expand a business in, I’m afraid, what with all the extra-terrestrial activity. Insurance is steep, stability of customer numbers isn’t guaranteed, and crime is very high despite the...” He turned up his nose. “ _ Crime-fighters _ .”

Maggie took in the attitude as much as she took in the building. If he was an indication of the company that he worked for, then she was looking in the right place. “Well, where my boss points me, I go.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. She, Krasney and Armstrong had reconvened in the Commissioner’s office the day after the attack on the NCPD, both men commending her for outstanding bravery. (Despite their rank, their praise did give her a platform to get a small dig in about men being cowards and needing women to handle their issues). 

The trio agreed that the first order of service was to sniff out the Cross campaign headquarters. The place to begin was reconnaissance; since the offices were relatively hidden away form the public, Maggie suggested that she pose as a potential renter for the adjacent space. 

And so, here she was, Cynthia Linenhall, a managing director of a company that was looking to expand into the state.  

As they meandered down the corridor, Maggie could hear the chatter of a busy campaign office. Phones rang, volunteers pitched and the low murmur of Cross’ radio broadcast grew louder. 

Tony glanced at her apologetically. “This is one thing I will warn you about. The noise is distracting, at best.”

“But not for much longer, right?” Maggie joked. 

“No, no. Once the election happens, they’ll clear out. And leave a mess, in my experience.”

Maggie forced an airy laugh, and Tony grinned. They stopped at the far end of the corridor, at the mouth of the bustling campaign office, letting her see right inside. Workers in red tshirts took up rows of cubicles, or zipped back and forth. Balloons with stark  _ Cross 2018 _ messages were strung up around the room. 

“Who owns these offices?” Maggie asked. 

Tony unlocked the doorway opposite, leading her into an empty, carpeted space. Floor to ceiling glass windows tracked along two walls, giving her a clear view out onto the city. A third was a windowed partition that let her see straight into the campaign office.

“Again, this is temporary,” he said dryly, “To answer your question, Douglas & Foster own this whole floor.” 

“The whole floor,” she said, pretending to be impressed. 

The campaign office hushed, and there was an announcement. Then, a cheer went up, some people banging on desks or waving papers in the air. 

“Well,” Maggie breathed, “Hopefully that’s the end of that.” 

“Oh, I’m not sure.” Tony slipped his free hand into his pocket, gesturing with the clipboard. “I think Cross is going to win this race. And it’ll be good, too. Maybe someone can finally get rid of the  _ presence _ in the city.”

Maggie tried to keep herself within the persona. Cynthia Linenhall was a corporate businesswoman who had no ethics, morals nor gods except profit. She swallowed down the angry backlash, and wandered in an aimless pattern around the office. 

“Cross win in California?” she mused, toying with the edge of her glasses, “That would be something.”

“It would.”

She eyed him as he grew lost in thought. If she weren’t playing a long game, she would have found a way to make him cry out  _ Cadmus _ right then and there. Sure, she didn’t have her gun, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to fight in a skirt. 

But until she had concrete evidence that Cross, and that Douglas & Foster, were part of a larger puzzle, she had to lower her scope and continue camping in the shadows. 

Tony shook himself out of his reverie, and she beamed at him.

“Talk to me about security and access.”

~

“Why haven’t you chosen to endorse a candidate for the governor’s election?”

It was the question that had been tossed around in the break rooms at Catco for the last few weeks, and with the election drawing closer, it became fodder for the war of opinion regarding Lena Luthor. 

She smirked at the mock grilling, fixing her blouse and sitting back in her chair. “Because Harrison Cross is a bigot and Valerie Blackery is an over-promising popularist.” 

Kara smiled, relaxing back into her chair. “Bigot is a strong word to use.”

“You mean, given my family’s history on the subject?”

“I mean, if I was a tabloid journalist...” Kara drawled. 

“Oh, of course, you take the high road.”

They shared a laugh. As a public figure, one who owned a major publication, Lena was expected to eventually put her colours to a mast, but Kara respected her for not backing a horse and sticking to her values.

A knock, and then Jess breezed into the office. “Miss Luthor, there’s a visitor here to see you.”

“Let them in,” Lena said, standing. On her cue, Kara also stood up. 

A man that she just about recognised entered. He was the same man that had been in Lena’s office a few days ago. Now, she had an opportunity to study him; he was thin-faced, with a crop of bright red hair. She looked at Lena, finding a familiar, bemused expression. 

“You know, turning up once is a catch up,” she said, “Turning up twice is a nuisance.”

“You don’t really believe that, Miss Luthor,” the man replied, grinning broadly.

Lena smirked at that, and then motioned between him and Kara. “Andrew, this is Kara Danvers. She’s a reporter at CatCo. Kara, this is Andrew Colkirk, CEO at Airedale Consulta.”

“Oh no, don’t get corporate,” he protested, holding out his hand, “I’m an old friend of Lena’s.”

“Nice to meet you.” Kara shook it, letting her grip be slack, lest she give herself away. “What brings you to National City?”

“I’m doing some work in here. Marketing is global, after all,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. He nodded towards Lena, “And reconnecting with old friends, of course.”

“I assume you dropped by with a reason,” Lena said, crossing her arms over her stomach.

“Yes,” he confirmed, rocking back and forth on his heels, “I wondered if I might take you out to dinner tonight. Do you have plans?”

Kara raised her eyebrows, watching the exchange carefully. There was clearly a history between them, she could feel it crackling like static before a storm. This man was dressed in an expensive suit, had an air of natural confidence about him, and Kara could imagine that they had spent a long time moving in the same social circles. 

Unconsciously, she smoothed down her patterned shirt. 

“None,” Lena replied, “I can book us a reservation at Trois Fleurs?”

Colkirk’s lips curled into a pleased smile, “I’ll get my driver to pick you up at 7?”

“Perfect.”

He moved to go without a goodbye, and Kara wondered how much had been said in the silent, steady eye contact that the pair held. The silent communications of the rich and powerful, she mused. It was one thing to see it in the TV shows that she and Alex spent their evenings binge watching, it was another entirely to see it play out in front of her.  

“Kara Danvers…” Colkirk turned back, a pensive expression on his face. “You wrote the article about the attack on the NCPD, didn’t you?”

A proud smile broke out on her face. “Yes, I did.”

“It was good, I read it on the way here.” He stared into space for a moment. “Odd, that. Attacking a police station.”

“I don’t think so.” Kara glanced at Lena, and then fiddled with her pen. “They tried to attack a key pillar of law enforcement in the city.”

“Good thing Supergirl was there to save the day,” Lena said dryly, glowering. 

“You’re too hard on her,” Colkirk scolded, “She is the hero of the city, after all.”

He winked at Kara, and then left. Lena tutted, sinking back into her chair. 

“He’s always been theatrical. I can only imagine what kind of work he’s involved with that brings him to America.”

Kara looked at the doorway, then at Lena, and finally the notes she had taken about the election. With a sigh, she lowered herself back into her seat, thinking that with candidates like Cross and Blackery, the theatrics had only just begun. 

~

Cavanaugh did not have the commanding authority that she did, but he was a more patient teacher. 

From high above on the balcony, Alex observed as he went through training exercises with the recruits, pointing out flaws in their technique, calling them by name. She wondered how many times J’onn had watched her training from afar, assessing her own capabilities to lead.

“Ma’am?” Brainy popped up beside her. “All of the final data sets have been tallied from both the Ziova and the alien from Snarz.” 

She shuddered, thinking about the huge reptile-like hybrid that had attacked the precinct a few days before. It had taken a skilled extraction team a number of hours to remove it from the decimated conference room, and by then there was no hiding it from the public. 

She rubbed over her cheeks, blowing out a breath. “Anything of note right now?”

“I can safely say that the Ziova and the, well, other alien, were both manufactured by the same group, person, or company.”

“Same origins,” Alex surmised.  _ Cadmus- _

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she almost dropped it down onto a recruit’s head at the sight of Maggie’s ID. “Hello?”

There was the sound of muffled canned laughter, and then;  _ “Danvers. Wanna hear all about my morning?” _

“That depends,” Alex said, attempting to sound casual, leaning her elbows on the balcony, “Anything you need to tell me now that can’t wait until we meet up later?”

_ “Well, I figure you can do some searching for me right now and cut down on the gumshoe time.” _

“You’re exploiting me to do your grunt work, now?”

_ “Yes I am.” _ They chuckled, and Alex heard the background noise switching off.  _ “Okay, seriously. Remember I told you that Armstrong thinks there’s some funny stuff going on with the Cross campaign?” _

Alex recalled the brief text exchanges they had tossed back and forth between them since the attack on the NCPD. “Yeah?”

_ “I went down to the campaign headquarters this morning to scout it out. The building is being rented out by some company called Douglas & Foster Properties.” _

Alex twisted, nudging Brainy and waving to his ever present tablet. “Search Douglas & Foster.” 

Brainy typed the name into the system, pulling up a range of information, mostly accompanied by pictures of housing and rental space all across National City. There was a map with two dozen pins on it, a few news items, and contact details. Alex pointed for him to click onto the company website.

_ “What did you find?” _

“This is weird,” Alex said, shifting so that she wasn’t arching her neck as much, “There’s almost no information on this website. They say they’re small, but the buildings they’re listing...”

For a company that claimed to be limited and local, the properties were high end. Penthouses, riverside villas, and professional spaces in the financial sector of town. 

_ “Quite the monopoly, right?” _

“Yeah…” Alex patted Brainy on the shoulder. “See if there’s anything weak about the network.”

“Got it,” he said, typing quickly.  

_ “I think it could be a front.” _

“I think you could be right.” 

Alex knew deep down it was premature, but there was a stirring of excitement in her gut. The tip off from the document, travelling across Europe, the briefcase, and now this; finally, they could be on Cadmus’ tail. “You’ve really sunk your teeth in, Maggie. This is good.”

_ “You know me, Danvers. I’m a biter.” _

“Uh,” Alex choked, feeling as if she had stepped on a rotten floorboard only to have her foot go straight through, “I guess, uh-”

_ “Shoot, I gotta go. See you at 6.” _

Alex barely got out a goodbye before the call ended. She stared blankly at the phone in her hand for a while, those words echoing in her head as heat crawled down her spine. 

“I like that Detective Sawyer.”

She switched her focus to Brainy, who was still working at the website. “I do too,” she said non-committedly.

“I heard you used to be engaged?”

“Stop listening to workplace gossip, Brainy.”

“I just want to-!”

“Fitting in does not have to include gossiping with Agent Cavanaugh,” she scolded lightly, bumping his shoulder before leaving.

~

**_KDStreaky4:_ ** _ Why Driftwood? _

**_Mnswr1975:_ ** _ Because they wanted to alienate the victims, for lack of a better word lol.  _

**_jolenejolene:_ ** _ Lol _

**_MrAmAzInG:_ ** _ their testimonies became as weak, separate and useless as driftwood. _

Kara read the reply to her question in the forum, skimming through the afternoon crowds in National City. Over the past few days, she had created a username and joined a few, wanting to find out if this was all a myth, or something that had really happened. 

And if it was, what exactly happened that day?

She had learned a lot since joining the forums. Five years ago, on 15th July 2013, the DEO had gunned down 16 aliens at a speakeasy similar to the Dollywood bar, considering them threats. Afterwards, witnesses were separated, detained, and threatened into silence, lest the same fate befall them-

“Miss Danvers?”

She wheeled around as Barney the receptionist waved her over. “Yeah?”

“Post came in late today.” He rolled his eyes and fixed his belt around his bulging waist. “Anyway, they asked you to come down and sign for a package.”

“Oh no,” she said, “I missed it?”

He shook his head as the desk phone let out a shrill noise. Holding up a thick finger, he answered, said a few toneless replies, and hung up. He threw up his meaty hands. “Apparently our phone number is very similar to a sandwich shop in Temecula.”

“You must get a lot of confused callers.”

“You have no idea,” Barney complained, “Anyway, CatCo signed on your behalf, since it was delivered to the company premises. The package is on your desk.”

Panic seized her immediately; surprise packages at work did not bode well. It could be someone aware of her identity, targeting her-

“Don’t panic,” Barney assured, obviously noticing the blood drain from her face, “We check out everything that goes through this building. It’s nothing dangerous.”

With reporters being regularly threatened for certain think-pieces, the cautionary measure made sense. Kara also knew that Cat and Lena had received their fair share of death threats over the years. 

Just like Barney said, her package had been opened. On top was a note- 

_ KDStreaky4, I hope this helps give you a better idea of what we’re up against. It’s a collection of things from the past 3 or so years. We’re trying to archive as much as we can. Thanks, MrAmAzInG. _

Kara pried open a flap of the slim box, which was about the size of her notebook, and then shimmied out a hard drive onto her desk. While she had been active on the forums, she had also been privately messaging with a few of the more vocal members, revealing that she was a journalist looking for more concrete information.

Now she could have something. 

She plugged the hard drive into her laptop and waited for its contents to appear. One by one, thumbnails popped onto her screen. Frowning, she made sure her volume was low, and clicked the first. 

At first, a blank screen. White text faded up, reading  _ The DEO is a black-ops organisation that terrorises alien refugees.  _ Then, shaky footage of DEO vehicles rumbling along the street. There were no identifying badges on the vans, but as they stopped and the rear doors opened, Kara recognised the uniforms of the agents who dropped out. Whoever was holding the camera crept around the edge of an alley, the brick blurring one side of the screen. Distant shouts were heard, and then the eruption of gunfire. 

A cut to black, and then more text; _ 15th July 2013. 16 aliens were killed in a place they believed was safe _ . Then there was a montage of clips and images of captured DEO operations. Kara leaned closer, trying to identify agents. Someone had been filming them from the sidelines, someone had been aware of their movements.

Someone knew about the DEO and wanted to hold them accountable, and Kara began to feel sickly strange. Had she become complacent? There were many things she had disagreed with over the past few years, but what about the missions that she hadn’t seen? What about before she was aware of the DEO at all?

She saw herself - Supergirl interspaced with the propaganda:  _ Compliant with a regime that would turn on her if she disobeyed? _ Aghast, she gripped her desk. The DEO would never-

“Did you see the guy with Lena?”

Kara’s snapped her laptop lid shut in alarm. She jerked way back, not realising how close she had been drawn in to the screen.

Nia occupied the doorway, her eyes sparkling with intrigue at her mentor’s reaction. “Reading erotica on company time, Danvers?”

“That’s inappropriate,” Kara chastised, taking off her glasses to clean them.

“As is reading erotica on company time,” Nia returned, closing the office door and wandering over to the free chair at the side.

“It’s for a story.”

“Is that what they call it these days?” Nia dragged the chair to the front of Kara’s desk, and then sat down. “Lena moved on quick, didn’t she?”

“I think Lena’s private life deserves to stay private,” Kara said, watching Nia carefully as she reopened her laptop.  

“He’s British, handsome. Maybe a better fit for her than James Olsen.”

Kara’s brow knitted, exiting all of the video material and removing the hard drive. “I don’t really-”

“What brings him to National City, do we think?”

“Work.”

“Coming for work and finding pleasure,” Nia purred, “Maybe he’s going to help out here. I mean, there’s gotta have been a lot of upheaval since that guy Sam left.”

_ Reign, bringing destruction once more to National City _ \- “After  _ she _ left.”

“Oh, it was  _ Samantha _ .” Nia flipped open her spiral-bound notebook. “Look at me of all people, still having prejudices.”

Kara saw the glint in her eye, like a wild cat toying with its prey, and she lost her grip on her patience once again. 

“Nia, we’ve got work to do. Office gossip is for lunch time.”

~

She didn’t deliberately stay in her suit for the arranged meeting at the DEO. It was immature to try and coax a reaction from Alex, and unfair, too. She wouldn’t stoop to that level of pettiness. 

At least, that’s what Maggie told herself as she caught Alex’s dark eyes running down her legs. She went over what she had discovered in her morning scout, Alex seeming thoroughly entertained with her tale of  _ Cynthia Linenhall _ . 

Gradually, they filled the DEO board with photographs and maps, piecing together the information, linking it from Europe to home. 

Maggie’s eyes flitted around the images, the Cadmus paperwork, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. This time, she hoped, no hybrid was going to crash through the window. 

“That’s all the locations we hit,” Alex announced, fixing a final pin to the board and stepping back, “Shall we go over it?”

“We were right about Maasrichem being used as a hideaway for them to take aliens,” Maggie said, picking up a page that corroborated the theory. She carefully pinned it beside a picture of the Swiss mill that they had captured when they raided it. “According to this document, a total of twenty four aliens from the region were snatched and experimented on there.”

She noticed Alex’s attention lingering on the mill, and for a second, that same lust that had sheened over her face in the hotel room was back. Then, Alex cleared her throat and looked at her boots. “Right, and then?”

“Then Nororlond, which we thought was a bust...” Maggie pointed to the satellite map of the river they had been tracking the banks of before they called it off and chased a separate lead back to Spain. “The place that had we’d been looking for is by a mine. I think the ore for the hybrids is being refined and made into the alloys there.”

Alex crossed her arms over her chest. “Repurposed factory?”

“Exactly. If I’m right about the ore, they could be manufacturing the hybrids there, too.”

“Maybe.” Alex turned to see the remainder of the papers, neatly put into piles on the long table. She flattened a palm on one, sliding it away. “Alacrucia we can cross off, because we now know that it was just a possible location for the weapons development facility that was based in Matersa.”

Maggie stared at the board. “We’re missing the answers to the bigger questions.” She counted them off on her fingers: “Why is Cadmus manufacturing overseas? Who is facilitating the manufacturing and why? How does all of this link to the election of the California Governor?”

“Lillian obviously has international contacts, but you’re right, why now? Why not do that before, stay off our radar?” Alex asked, craning her head at the pile of blueprints.

Maggie joined her, recognising the anti-gravity gun outline. They had encountered that the day that she had suggested Alex was gay, tumbling them both down into a rabbit hole that, if she was honest, they still hadn’t emerged from almost two years later. 

“These…” Alex lifted the gun blueprint away, revealing another. It was for the worm, the blueprint that they had found just before they hit Matersa. She wagged a finger at it, and Maggie could see a thought taking root in her features. “These are not all the same designers. They’re marked by different signatures.”

“Cadmus has some new employees?”

“Which explains the sudden appearance of hybrids…” Alex straightened, turning towards the board. “Wherever the factory is, my dad isn’t making these things.” 

“You don’t think Jeremiah worked on the hybrids?”

“He made Metallo, and Cyborg Superman, so he’s had a hand in this  _ type _ of thing before,” Alex clarified, “But now they’ve refined it, and others are building on that.”

Maggie saw a flash of fear in Alex’s eyes. Cadmus had new blood, and if Lillian had other scientists doing Jeremiah’s job- a better job than him- then it was only a matter of time before she decided to terminate his services.  

However she saw fit. 

“Your boss thinks Cadmus is embroiled in the Cross campaign, and at the same time, we’ve got hybrids from Europe attacking National City,” Alex concluded, “What’s the missing link?” 

“Election day is getting closer,” Maggie said, “Hybrids cause fear and terror, Cross puts out his anti-alien message, his poll numbers go up. Cadmus could be trying to go the political route? Get more of their people in office?”

“Is it that simple?” Alex put her hands on her hips. “There’s gotta be something more than this. That’s too easy.” 

At that moment, a voice cleared. They turned to find Kara scrutinising them. She clutched a hard drive to her chest, and with one last dispassionate glare at the pair of them, she stepped forward. Without preamble, she handed the hard drive to Alex. 

“What’s this?” Alex asked. 

“I was sent this today,” Kara explained, “You wanted more proof, right?”

Alex turned the hard drive over in her hands, and Maggie thought she might be buying herself time. “What is it?”

“Anti-DEO material.”

Maggie watched the haunch of Alex’s spine as the news rattled through the room. She sat down, feeling like she was intruding on the sister’s moment.

“Who the hell did you get this from?” Alex waved the hard drive.

Kara ducked the question. “Don’t you wanna see it?” 

Alex stepped around her sister, backing towards the door. “I’m going to get Brainy to scan this because…”

Her gaze flicked to Maggie, further cementing the discomfort that she felt being present for the exchange. Since Kara’s subtextual warning off, Maggie had dreaded being in the same space as both Danvers sisters again. The hospital had inspected her stitches after the attack on the precinct, and the swelling had gone down, yet she felt a jagging throb now as her stomach dropped. 

Alex left her alone with Kara, and the tension rolled off of the superhero in waves. The dead air emphasised every squeak of the red boots as Kara paced in front of the murderboard slowly. 

After about a minute, an exasperated Maggie asked, “This about that Driftwood thing?”

“Yes,” Kara conceded, eyes trained on the patterned board they had constructed. 

Maggie fixed the hem of her skirt, mulling over the information. Anti-DEO propaganda, and a story about a botched operation. “What else you got?”

Kara spun around in surprise. “What?”

“I’m not gonna rat you out to Alex,” Maggie assured, leaning back in the chair, “I just wanna know what else you’ve got going in terms of evidence. Some badly edited, prejudicial phone footage and a couple of guys on an online forum won’t cut a story.”

“I know that,” Kara said defensively, not denying the quality of whatever was on the hard drive.

Offense flared over the superhero’s face, and Maggie dipped her chin. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job.” She folded her hands on her lap, considering the situation a beat longer. “But I am just…”

Looking off into the hall for a second, the hint seemed to sink in as Kara closed the door with her toe. Then, she shifted over to the table as the mood settled. “Do you think it’s true?”

Maggie saw the spark of excitement in Kara’s eyes, the personal distrust falling away piece by piece at the professional olive branch. 

“I think…” 

She weighed up her options, her loyalties. She knew the DEO had a dark past when it came to internment and their shoot-first policy, but she also had faith in Alex that her heart was in the right place to carry on J’onn’s legacy to change the direction of the organisation. She bit her lower lip. Her mind told her that justice was owed to all victims, but her heart… 

“I think that you’ve gotta dig and make this stick,” Maggie said seriously, tapping her fingertip on the table, “And even if it does, you’ve gotta decide what to do, Kara. You’re potentially putting your sister in a really difficult place.”

“I…” Kara frowned deeply, looking down at her boots. “I just…”

“I get it. You think there’s victims involved.”

Kara licked her lips. “If this is true, then I know there’s victims involved.”

“And you want justice.”

“I-”

The door opened, and Alex was back. She gave them both a perplexed look, picking up on the atmosphere, and then focused on Kara.

“There’s an alien attacking Trois Fleurs downtown,” she said, “Could be another hybrid.”

Kara scrunched up her nose. “Trois Fleurs...” 

Jumpstarting, she shoved past Alex with a gasp-

“Lena!”

~

It was already a nightmare by the time Supergirl landed. 

The window had a feature of lights and decorations, obscuring her view of the inside, but she could hear the muffled shrieks. Noticing that the crowd wasn’t pouring out onto the street around her, she rushed the entrance and yanked it open. 

There, a few feet in front of her and blocking the escape, was another hulking Ziova. 

“Hey buddy,” she said, “Didn’t anyone tell you that this place has a dress code?”

The Ziova faced her, baring its bony jaws, but she shook her head at its attempt at menace. 

“Nope, I’m sorry sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

She pounced forward, aiming for its chest, but the Ziova caught her by the hips. With a force she wasn’t expecting, it punted her towards the back of the restaurant. Kara sailed over the gasping crowd, crashing onto a round table, sending cutlery and unfinished food cascading onto the floor. 

Kara flipped to her feet, gritting her teeth. She leapt up, hanging in the air, waiting for it to make its move. It charged through the restaurant, tossing over tables and chairs in its wake, and altogether too late she realised that people were trapped in with them. The low ceiling and congested nature of the room meant that there was a high possibility that innocent people were going to get hurt-

She dove towards it, intending on stalling its rampage, but it offset her balance and swung her towards the large chandelier. It came straight off the ceiling, glass shattering in a dozen directions to the sound of more gasps and cries of terror.  

The Ziova leered at patrons, snapping its jaws at one petrified young couple. Kara tackled it, its lithe body bending away from her and crashing them awkwardly against one of the longer tables. Underneath, she heard frightening hands and feet scurrying to clear out as the table buckled under their weight. 

Staggering forward, Kara managed to loop an arm around the large hybrid’s neck. Unceremoniously, she grunted and tried to drag it towards the front of the restaurant again as it lashed in her arms, its wiry limbs hitting out against tables and chairs.  

Tightening her chokehold, she saw Guardian appear from the back of the restaurant. “Get everyone out!” 

Guardian surveyed the people trapped behind tables, and then looked at where she was wrestling with the Ziova. 

“Guardian!” she urged.

Not hesitating any longer, Guardian strode forward, motioning for people to slip out through the kitchen behind him. The Ziova struggled and got free, but Kara had had enough. She launched it away from her with a punch, splintering a table and half a dozen chairs. 

Flying over the scattered remains of the chairs, she grabbed one and caged the Ziova against the decorated window long enough for her to grip the top of its exoskeleton. With a roar, she tore off the breastbone, exposing the hybrid’s circuitry, and delivered a final swift kick to its abdomen. It smashed out onto the street, where it tumbled and then lay twitching. 

Kara dropped the fractured exoskeleton and sighed out the tension of the fight, relaxing back on her heels. She turned to face the restaurant, broken window ornaments crunching under her boots. Dozens of wild eyes fixed on her. Lena and Colkirk crawled out from under a table. She offered a smile, and then looked at Guardian, hovering by the entrance to the kitchen. 

The four exchanged looks as not one person in the entire restaurant moved a muscle. The jolly  _ Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 _ filled the air of Trois Fleurs once more, no longer drowned out by the fight. 

Guardian gave her one last look and then turned away to aid people out of the restaurant. Lena focused on Colkirk, brushing down her dress, and even with the room’s eyes on her, Kara felt suddenly alone. 

~

It was funny what people were willing to do when the right amount of cash was slapped into their palm. 

Colkirk sat with Bradshaw, reviewing the video that they had cut together. From the angles and the testimonies that they had encouraged out of  _ patrons _ , there was sure to be a rise in anti-Supergirl sentiment. The interviewees may have been Cadmus plants, and the community sharing the video would be bots, but the impact it would have would be real. 

“How was dinner?” Bradshaw asked, editing down a snippet in the middle of the video. 

Colkirk sat back, crossing one ankle over the other. “Good, although I’d rather it had been a real date, rather than Lillian making me go fetch her daughter and bring her back to the fold.”

Bradshaw snorted, glancing at him. “You’ve never been a long game player.”

“Not since Draycott Academy, anyway,” he said, thinking of his cricket days.

They sat quietly as Bradshaw made a few other changes, and then they watched the new cut of the video. It was phone footage of Supergirl and the hybrid, showing a violent exchange, highlighting the terrified screams of trapped patrons. Interspaced were amateur interviews of injured witnesses. 

_ “Supergirl didn’t care where she was throwing her fists. Sure, she got that thing, but my wife was knocked over and smacked her head on a table!-” _

“Why does Lillian want this made again?” Bradshaw said, hitting pause and clipping a few frames off of the clip. 

“Taking down Supergirl is no longer enough for Lillian anymore, not after Alex Danvers’ stunt last year. She wants Supergirl to be discredited and humiliated before she destroys her.” 

Bradshaw grunted. “Well this video is doing a pretty good job of it.” 

Colkirk kicked off his shoes and pointed at the monitors. “Besides, things like this can sway an electorate, and that’s going to help our current passion project.”

Bradshaw hit play on the last few seconds of the video.  

_ “-Then they destroyed that big chandelier and I think I saw one woman get glass in her eye.” _

Colkirk smirked. “Play it again.”

~

_ “-I saw one woman get glass in her eye-” _

Brainy tapped the space bar again, pausing the video. Kara watched the tense line of Alex’s shoulders rise and fall before she turned slowly, fire in her eyes.

Alex pointed at the screen. “What the hell was that, Kara?”

“That video is edited!” Kara argued, “It makes it look so much worse than it was.”

“Worse than it was?” Alex cried, “Kara, why didn’t you try and get people out first?”

Kara flapped her arms, adamantly trying to convey the difficulty she had faced. “I couldn’t! The room was so small, and that thing came at me.”

“Protect people, Kara.” Alex stepped forward, thunder shaking her body. “ _ That’ _ s supposed to be your main focus.”

The chastising was like a splash of ice water. Kara dropped her arms, fists balling at her sides. “What did you think-”

Alex held up a hand, shaking her head. “Be careful next time.”

Kara stepped back, biting her cheek. She was used to Alex treating her like a child at times, but this felt unwarranted. She had tried her best with an aggressive attacker, and strangely enough, she thought that the DEO strike team had been sluggish in their efforts to arrive on the scene. But she held back. 

With one last huff, Alex started away, and Kara glanced between her retreating figure and Brainy at the monitor. “Wait, where are you going?”

“I’ve got a conference call to take in five minutes,” Alex threw back.

“About?”

“It’s confidential,” Alex snapped. She stopped and turned back, one foot on the steps. “One more thing. That hard drive…”

Aware of the agents flitting in the expanse of space between them, Kara thought it would have been better to close the distance, but she stood her ground. “Yeah?”

“I contacted J’onn, and Lucy, and a few guys higher up in Washington.” Alex started back up the stairs, shouting back, “They’ve never heard of Operation Driftwood. It’s all a fraud, and the filming is most likely just some anarchist or conspiracy theorist.” 

_ Fraud _ . The word alone was insulting, and Kara’s temper began to boil. She turned back towards Brainy, who was watching her warily, like she might lash out. He waved to his console, and swung back to it. 

Kara stormed off. It was one thing to see edited propaganda of herself, it was another to see it of the DEO. Alex had been lying about her job long before Kara donned her suit, and she had seen enough of the organisation’s actions towards threats- real and perceived- to know that Driftwood wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Stomping up towards the balcony, she remembered Maggie’s warning about deciding whether to pursue the story or let sleeping dogs lie. But agitation was building inside. On the 15th July 2013, had 16 aliens lost their lives, cowering in what they had perceived to be a safe place?

Kara needed to follow up on this. She needed to know when exactly, where exactly, who had died and who was involved; on both sides. She didn’t want to form any theories based on gut instinct just yet, not until she had hard evidence. But one gut instinct was planted in her mind. 

Alex had been capable, and willing, to cover up for the DEO in the past. 

Could she be now? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!


	5. 4x05

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry for the absence. Life things happened, as usual. Here's a long chapter. 
> 
> Not sure if I need to slap any trigger warnings on here, but be cautious that some of the topics and scenarios of this chapter are pretty dark. Hopefully not so much that you don't enjoy :)

Not a peep from the table. 

She could hear the buckles of holsters when an agent shifted their feet. Each cleared throat or cough was a disruption. If a mouse scurried on the platform upstairs, she thought she might have been able to hear it. She probably would have asked them for their advice. 

Alex haunched lower over the round table. Brainy had managed to project a 3D image of the reservoir and the Truguls trapped within it onto the surface. For the last thirty minutes, she had assembled her base team and sent out a specialised troupe to deal with the incident, and yet had not-  _ could not _ \- make her decision on what to do. 

Truguls were aquamarine aliens who had been trafficked to Earth in tanks a few years ago. When they were in distress, the substance they admitted was extremely toxic to humans, and the traffickers wanted to refine it into a bioweapon. However, the DEO had collapsed the trafficking ring and freed the aliens, whose docile colony now resided along the California coast line. 

The pressing matter was that somehow, a number of Truguls had managed to get into a reservoir on the outskirts of the city. Alex suspected they were deliberately dumped there, but she would have her squads investigate that later. The main issue was that the Truguls, cut off from their colony and trapped, were emitting some of that toxic substance from their pores into the water.

If it got into the National City water supply, thousands would be poisoned and, most likely, perish. 

“They’re becoming more and more agitated,” Cavanaugh said, glancing around at the other hawkish faces, “Which means every second, more of their...emissions are leaking into the water-”

“I’m well aware of that,” she interrupted, and then huffed out a slow breath.

She watched the tiny purple dots move around in the translucent projection of the reservoir. The specialised team had gotten it closed off from the water supply, but now they were stuck. A storm had been brewing around the bay, and it would bring flash floods in its wake. The reservoir would overflow…

“Ma’am?” an agent piped up, “The latest meteorology report-”

“I know what it says,” Alex snapped, plunging the room into silence once more. 

It was going to go one of two ways. 

One, she could order the reservoir drained immediately, but it would kill the Truguls, who had to live in liquid. Two, she could try and extract them safely, but the storm closing in and spilling the toxic water into the city’s supply would endanger the lives of the citizens, and she had no idea how long the extraction would take.

“National City’s treatment facilities will not be able to strain their…” Dr Miller struggled, “Their  _ distress _ .”

“They’re a harmless species,” she said, straightening up and crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Be that as it may, Ma’am, the longer we wait, the higher the cost could be,” he said. 

Cavanaugh was one of the most patient agents she had met, and it was a quality that had tipped her thinking when she promoted him to be her deputy. Yet even he was now scratching at his beard anxiously. 

“Ma’am?” he prompted.

“If it were you, in my shoes, what would you do?” she asked him.

“I think that the threat to the city is immediate and grave, and I think that the best course of action is to drain the reservoir of water.” Cavanaugh clasped his hands behind his back, clearing his throat and looking down, adding, “Despite the unfortunate loss of life it will cause to the Truguls.”

“But could you do it?” she probed.

Cavanaugh faltered, and swayed back a notch, and in his silence she had her answer. 

“What’s your order, Ma’am?” he diverted.

She turned her on all of them, pacing slowly towards the monitors. She could feel their impatience, their eagerness to act. She almost despised them for their willingness to move at the second she clicked her fingers. 

Alex squared her shoulders, not facing them, as she made her decision.

“Drain it.”

~

By the time Maggie arrived, the DEO were scattered around the rim of the reservoir, dressed in uniforms from the National City Department of Water and Power. She recognised a few of the faces, nodding to them as she reached the railing and peered down into the water. 

Purple shapes streaked with gold darted under the surface. Hovering idly in the air was Supergirl. From the shuffling demeanour of both the superhero and the agents around the edge, it was obvious they were still waiting on a decision. 

Spotting Agent Fenner a few yards away, she sauntered over, eyeing the dark, pregnant clouds in the direction of the city. 

“Agent Fenner,” she greeted.

The agent leaned against the side of a grey truck. “Detective Sawyer.”

“You work for the city now?”

“Yup. Once I finish up here I’m going to fix a problem on the grid,” Fenner deadpanned.

“Ha.” Maggie swiped the tail of her windbreaker behind her, settling her hands on her hips. “And the trucks?”

Fenner thumped a fist on the side. “Covers for the anti-aquarian-matter equipment we’ve brought. It’ll drain the reservoir in minutes.” 

Maggie whistled, spying the growing frustration in the bodies at other trucks around the bend. “What’s everyone waiting for?” 

“The Director hasn’t made the call yet,” the agent said evenly, “There’s a toxic substance being released into the water, so it needs to have a full rinse job.” She chipped a worn edge off of the badge decal, the  _ a _ coming off of National City. “Problem is whether we can get the Truguls out or not. They die very quickly out of water.”

“Oh boy,” Maggie said.

She had been called off her break by Krasney. While he was still allowing her breathing space from active case files, he said she needed to come back on duty momentarily. His reasoning was that she was the only one he felt comfortable sending out to monitor the developing situation. 

“How come you’re down here?” Fenner asked.

“I got called down here cause the other detective on duty is throwing up from dodgy lunch shrimp.”

The agent chortled. Maggie found it ridiculous that these specially trained agents were dressed in the slate-grey uniforms of city workers, their state of the art technology hidden away in the back of rusty trucks, but she didn’t say anything.  

Supergirl landed beside them suddenly, startling Maggie. “What’s taking Alex so long? We should be helping them get out.”

Maggie let her gaze trail around the edge of the reservoir to the slipways that led down into a valley. “Any idea how they got there in the first place?”

Agent Fenner zipped the top of her jumpsuit down a few inches, and then rubbed at her temple. “Dumped in by anti-alien thugs, I’d say. There’ll probably be an investigation once this is done.”

Another agent joined them, one that Maggie didn’t recognise. “Latest from base is that there’s a warning in place for flash flooding. What do we do?”

Fenner slipping her hands into the pockets of the jumpsuit with a shrug. “Danvers hasn’t made a call yet.”

Maggie didn’t know much about Truguls, but she saw Agent Hausmann and Kennedy at the next truck over, and knew they were alien hazmat specialists. Every so often, a Trugul would let out a misty purple burst, gradually changing the colour of the reservoir water. She made the simple connection in her head, looking off down the slipways once more towards the city. 

“She’d better hurry, or that storm is gonna make it for her,” she said.

Supergirl let out a huff, and Maggie departed, wandering towards two boys who looked out of place amongst the grey figures and trucks. They peered between the railings, watching down at the purple aliens and lilac water in interest. 

“Hey guys.” She crouched down and they whipped towards her. “Are you here alone?”

The taller one, a boy with sandy hair and a red and white striped T shirt on, turned and pointed towards the parking lot a few yards away, where a woman was packing bags into a car. 

“Is that your mom?” The boy looked at his smaller companion. Then he nodded, and Maggie smiled. “Why don’t you go back to-”

Activity erupted behind her. Agents sprung into action, startling up the low grumbling of the engines. Maggie gave both of the boys a push toward their mom, making sure they were running in that direction before she returned to the railing. 

“What’s happening?”

Kara’s horrified expression was focused on the wriggling purple Turguls below. She jabbed her finger against her earpiece. “Alex, what are you doing?”

Maggie watched as the DEO vehicles backed right to the edge of the railing, agents lowering dozens of thick, black tubes down into the water. Around the lip of the reservoir, they sprawled down like spiders legs.   

“Cavanaugh, put- no, put Alex on now.”

She glanced at Kara, whose face became more fraught and frantic as vapor filled the air, rising off the surface of the reservoir. Even with the darkening sky, Maggie saw how the water level began dropping rapidly. 

“What? No!” 

Maggie’s focus switched to Kara as the superhero’s confusion melted into horror. The railing groaned, whined and then began to bend under the kryptonian grip. Always consciously that she was handling the world’s strongest woman, Maggie gently placed her hands on Kara’s shoulders. 

“Kara, hey, let’s take a step back-”

“Why aren’t they helping them, Maggie? What are they doing?”

Kara’s knees buckled, and Maggie hooked her arms awkwardly around the taller woman’s waist and tugged her backwards a few paces.  

“Hey, hey, Kara?” Maggie said, sinking with her to the ground, “Kara, it’s me. It’s just me and you.”

She rounded Kara’s panicking figure, crumpling on the ground, and knelt down in front of her. She hoped she was block the view of the reservoir. Kara’s breathing was coming quicker, eyes like saucers.

“Maggie, I can hear them. I can-”

Maggie shook her head. “Focus on me, okay? Focus on my voice. It’s just me.”

Kara dug a fingertip into her ear, fumbling out a black ear piece, letting it drop to the concrete. She flattened her palms over her ears and screwed up her face, but it was clear that it wasn’t enough to drown out the distressed noises that only Supergirl’s hearing could pick up. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” Maggie assured, taking Kara’s wrists cautiously. She replaced Kara’s hands with her own, wondering if the thundering in her blood with help overpower the horror she couldn’t hear over the DEO engines, “I’m here.”

Kara bowed her head, pressing Maggie’s hands tightly to her ears. She didn’t know how long exactly she sat there, watching a crinkled brow twitch as if Kara were expecting a blow, but it was enough that her legs began to cramp. She shifted onto her knees, and settled again, ignoring the world outside of Kara as she calmed down. 

Even when cool rain spat at her skin, she remained.

~

Her boots landed with a dull splat on the balcony, squelching as she stomped into the DEO towards where her sister was debriefing a team of two dozen agents. 

“They all died, Alex,” she announced, taking the stairs two at a time as all of the room’s attention flung in her direction, “Every single one.”

Alex was the last to turn her way. She cleared her throat, her hands fussing at her waist. “I didn’t-”

“Stop.” Kara stood in front of her, trembling with rage. “Just stop.”

“Our water treatment facilities are not capable of dealing with their enzymes,” Alex placated, keeping her eyes on Kara’s wet boots, “Thousands of people would have died.” 

“You could have held on a little longer.”

“The storm was coming-”

“There was still time!”

“Not enough,” Alex fired back, raising her voice. She gestured from Kara’s boots and suit to her dripping, tangled hair. “You’re soaking already.”

“You didn’t have to listen to them die, Alex.”

Crowded around as an audience were agents and technicians, all watching their leader consider her next move. Kara felt a droplet of rain slide from her hairline down the curve of her temple and cheek, but she didn’t move to wipe it away. She just stared unwaveringly at her sister. 

“It was a terrible decision,” Alex finally conceded. Then, her eyes hardened as they met Kara’s. “But it was mine to make.”

Kara scoffed, but Alex wasn’t done, stepping away from the thicket of black uniforms. “And if you can’t handle that, you might need to reconsider working with the DEO, because there is gonna be a hell of a lot more tougher decisions than this.”  

It was a caution, but it rang like a warning. Or a threat. 

Kara lifted her chin in defiance. “Some reconsideration might be required, Director Danvers.” 

Without pausing to see any of the reactions behind her, Kara lashed around and strode towards the nearest corridor. She turned the corner and bumped someone’s shoulder, barging them straight into the wall. 

Immediately, her tension ebbed away. “Oh my god, I’m sorry-”

“It’s fine,” Maggie assured, winded. She rubbed her shoulder through her jacket. Rainwater still slid in drips down the patterned leather. 

Kara fiddled with the thumb strap of her suit, not quite ready to part ways with the detective. “Hey. You’re here for...”

“Yeah, I’m here for Alex,” Maggie replied, swiping some damp hair behind her ears, “If she has time for us local cops today.” 

It was easy; Maggie’s face betrayed nothing of what had happened at the reservoir, and Kara was struck by gratitude. Finally, she saw the reason why Alex had felt so comfortable trusting her. She held people’s insecurities behind a locked door, and didn’t think less of them for it. 

Kara shifted a little closer. “Thank you for...” 

“Kara, it’s fine.” Maggie lowered her voice, glancing around them. “I can’t imagine what you must have heard.”

“Would you have done it?”

Maggie sighed, rubbing her palms together slowly. “It was for the safety of the city. Doesn’t mean I have to like the decision.”

Somehow, this answer was less bitter a pill to swallow. Maybe it was the grace that Maggie had shown her at the reservoir, but she accepted the facts quicker than she had with Alex.

She made to continue down the corridor, but doubled back. “I’m also sorry about what I said.” 

Maggie slipped her hands into her jacket pockets. “About?”

Kara tried to listen out for any eavesdropping agents nearby as she said, “About you and Alex.”

The detective’s mouth opened and closed in surprise and then she cleared her throat. “No, don’t be. You were right.” 

“Leave Europe in Europe?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Maggie assured, sheepish and smug at once.

“Maybe try harder?” Kara said, not unkind, and with a bold smile. 

Maggie rolled her eyes at the suggestion, but returned the smile. 

~

Colkirk had been fielding calls from his main company,  _ Airedale Consulta,  _ all morning. The Trugul incident, no matter how the DEO had tried to pass it off as a city event, had made the news. Public reaction was shock. Truguls were peaceful creatures. They had been known to swim up to boats, and circle playfully around divers. They were a positive example of how other species could coexist in the most fluid way with humanity. 

And now, the pro-alien sentiment was rising, angry at the deaths. Worse, it was whacking at their poll numbers. Colkirk paced the length of the office, ranting to a board member.  

Bradshaw eyed him wearily. The link between Airedale Consulta and Cadmus ran deep, but it wasn’t so much a partnership as a very fragile alliance. Their endgame was long and complex, and it only took one issue for the whole structure to fall apart. 

After this misstep, he wondered if his next orders would come through Colkirk, or directly through Cadmus itself. He was, after all, an agent on loan. 

“Oh, suddenly people love aliens,” Colkirk seethed, throwing his phone into a chair, “Suddenly they’re martyrs.” 

“Maybe we need to call the Cross team,” Bradshaw suggested calmly, “I don’t know if we can recover from something like this with the election so close.”

“Yes we can. We’re going to get Cross in front of cameras explaining what could have happened if the Truguls had lived.” Colkirk jagged a finger into the middle of his palm. 

“Okay.” He turned back to his monitors. If Cross failed, there would be no next step. 

“Bradshaw you don’t look convinced.”

“I’m not, sir.”

Colkirk grabbed the back of his chair, spinning him and caging him with his arms. He leered close, teeth bared. 

“Say it with me. Harrison Cross will be the next governor of California.” When Bradshaw didn’t, he inched closer. “Say it.”

“Harrison Cross will be the next-”

Colkirk shoved off of the chair, fixing himself as Bradshaw uttered; “Governor...” 

The agent watched as Colkirk gestured in disgust at the monitors, and then stalked off. “Keep pushing that onto people’s feeds.” 

~

Kara managed to intercept an intern on her way to James’ office. With a healthy dose of her sunny charm, she managed to convince them to hand over the package so she could deliver it herself.  

James was hunched over his desk, inspecting the hatch on the back of what Kara thought was an old film camera. Balancing the box in one hand, she knocked with the other. 

“Hey, you.”

James looked surprised to see her, and then schooled his features. “Hey.”

“Parcel,” she said, walking over and putting the box down on the desk. 

He opened a drawer and brought out a small blade that she recognised as part of his Guardian set. Carefully, he slit down the tape in the middle of the box, and opened up the flaps. Inside were a dozen black plastic spools. She watched him pull one out, uncap the top, and slide out a roll of film. 

“How are you?” she tried.

“I’m good.”

He didn’t look at her as he reached for the camera, pulling back the hatch and slotting the film into place. 

She sighed, adjusting her glasses. “James-”

“Kara, this isn’t a good time.”

She knew she was being begged off. He had time to order film and play with an old camera, after all. 

“I miss you,” she said softly, “I know it’s awkward with you and Lena, but you were my friend first-” 

“Is this about a story?” he interrupted. 

Giving up with a huff, Kara took a few steps away from the desk and crossed her arms. “Yes, actually.”

When he didn’t reply, she began to explain Driftwood. The allegations, what she had found on the hard drive, and the recent developments as she began a closer communication with some of the people who claimed they were there. 

As the details filtered through, James put down the camera. Eventually, Kara had his full attention, and he rounded the desk to perch on the edge. 

“Now they wanna meet,” she finished. 

“Well, you can handle yourself,” James said, glancing at the doorway, “But it could still be a trap of some kind. Someone who knows your identity?”

“You sound like Alex.”

He pulled up his sleeves. “Be that as it may…”

“Yeah, I just…” Kara knew they had been caught out before by those who knew her identity. Alex floating in a tank had been enough of a caution for all of them against getting sloppy. “I wondered if you might come with me? Vet the story a little?”

“Speaking of Alex, your sister’s job…” James ran a hand over his lips, concerned. “You might wanna think about this very carefully.”

Kara played with a button on her blouse. “That’s what Maggie said.”

“She’s around again?”

“She and Alex left and went to Europe and it got messy.” Kara wrung her hands in the air. “It’s a whole thing.”

James tugged the box of film spools over to his hip, as if to check them. But Kara saw the sharp draw of sorrow on his face. Then he tapped the box and looked up. “How about you tell me all about it over lunch?”

Kara brightened. “Absolutely!”

~

“Director Danvers.”

Alex hated her bony face and her wispy voice. “Mrs Walker.”

“That was a difficult call you had to make this morning.” The woman’s glasses sat on the edge of her nose as she peered down at something out of frame on her desk. “I’m just reading through your report now.”

A perk of Alex’s promotion was that she could delegate the reports to Cavanaugh, or another agent. But the incident this morning was one she wanted to take personal responsibility for covering. 

“Yes, it wasn’t the best start to the morning.”

Walker hummed, disinterested. “The bodies were removed from the site?”

“Yes, and a specialist team was sent in to make sure that the reservoir is fit for use again.”

“Detoxing.”

“That’s right.”

Humming again, Walker laced her fingers together. “Well, as far as we in the Justice Department see it, you made the right call.”

Alex fought to keep her expression rigid, and not sneering at the ease in which Walker dismissed the cull. “Thank you. Now, should we get on to the rest of the itinerary?”

She was relieved when Walker acquiesced, readying herself for the questioning. 

“Well, we’ve reviewed your first proposed budget as Director…”

~

They had chosen a public place to meet, because the four people who had agreed to give their testimony were skittish about giving out their home addresses. Given the event that they claimed to have witnessed, Kara didn’t exactly blame them. 

It was strange for her to meet  **_MrAmAzInG_ ** without the username to hide behind. He was an Evur-Tanian, and she spotted him without difficulty, despite his attempts at being inconspicuous at the back of the cafe. Long ears that would stand up high above his scalp were hidden underneath a grey beanie, and the purple irises his species was known for were covered with blue contact lenses.

Evur-Tah was a planet the opposite from Krypton, its sun was new and close, and blindingly bright. Those who came to Earth suffered from very pale skin. As she drew closer, she noticed the anxious bounce of his knees under the table. 

“Mr Amazing?” she said. 

His eyes shot up to her, flitting up and down her form. “Kara Danvers?”

“Yup, that’s me.” She gripped the strap of her bag. “May I sit?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he spluttered, scooting backwards and pulling the table with him before she could pull out a chair. 

He seemed ready to bolt at any second, so she sat down tentatively, letting the strap slide easily down her shoulder. 

“The first time meeting someone in real life can be pretty awkward,” she joked, glad when he let out a stutter of laughter. 

“So awkward,” he agreed, body trembling as his knees continued to bounce out of sight, “The four people who want to talk to you are in the backroom of this place. I’m the manager here so I think that’s fine to use, right?”

She nodded, and then pointed to the glass front of the cafe. “My friend James is here. He’s waiting just outside. He doesn’t have to be part of this if you guys aren’t comfortable with that.”

Mr Amazing fidgeted with the hem of his beanie. The wool twitched imperceptibly as his ears wiggled inside.  “James Olsen? He’s the photographer, right?”

Kara wasn’t surprised that he had taken the time to look into CatCo. If this story was true, and was to finally be made public, she knew the survivors had to trust the reporting source. “Yes.”

He jostled upright. “Yeah I don’t see why not.” He began his retreat towards the counter of the cafe, waving at her. “You go get him and I’ll go talk to, umm…” 

Five minutes later, they were sitting in a cramped back store. Their seats were empty plastic crates and their refreshments were multi-packs of juice, but the four timid aliens facing them made their discomfort vanish. Four different species, but all wearing the same sombre expression.  

Kara and James straightened their features as they were shown grainy blow-ups of photographs captured on cell phones. People hiding between chairs, or underneath tables. Hunkered together on the basement floor that had been the alien speakeasy. 

Photographs of bodies, of people lying dead.   

“This is what we managed to get,” Mr Amazing explained, eyes darting so fast between them and the door into the cafe that Kara was sure his blue contacts were going to slip right out, “People snapped photographs before hiding their phones in case they were confiscated.”

“I slipped mine under a loose floorboard just after the shooting started,” a tall man said. He was folded almost in half as he hunched over his crate. Kara couldn’t place his species, but he was a hulking figure, probably eight foot tall when he stood up. 

By the time they were recording the third testimony, the third witness, Kara wasn’t sure how much longer she could hear this story without calling Alex. Whether in anger, or to grill her further, or to ask outright if she had been lying, she wasn’t sure. 

The alien woman was a Glucotska. She had shimmering, emerald veins running underneath darker green skin. 

“My name is Martina,” she said meekly, glancing at the two aliens who had gone before her, “I go by Tina for short.”

“Is that a chosen name?” James asked.

“No- well- yes,” Tina stuttered. “My brother chose it for me when I was very young. He never told me my real name.”

Kara saw her twisting her hands, catching their shake. Gluskas had four beating chambers, rather than a single heart, and she could pick up the rapid clenching of each one. “Take your time, Tina.”

The Gluska took a deep breath. “I came here when I was really young. My brother raised me. We hid a lot of the time. I had to tell people I had a rare skin condition just to get by.” She laughed nervously and displayed her hands, showing off the pulsing green veins.

“How long had you been living on Earth when this happened?”

“Oh, um-” Tina retracted her hands. “I can’t remember when I started to count my age in Earth years. I was a kid when we came, and then I g-guess I was about 14 in Earth years at the time of the incident.” 

“You’re about 19 in Earth years now, right?” James prompted.

Tina nodded. “I came by the bar after school. It’s where I’d meet my brother. Sometimes he worked shifts. Everyone took turns.” 

James scribbled at a reporter pad, because by now Kara was too immersed in the testimonies to concentrate on noting down the details. 

“Then what happened?” she asked. While she had heard the story twice now, she hadn’t heard Tina’s version of what she remembered. 

“I can’t remember anything between getting there and well-” She swallowed. “I just remember the boots upstairs. They came down the stairwell and we were trapped. There was nowhere else to go.”

Kara referred back to the images of the bar they had said. It was little more than a musty basement. The man who owned the warehouse had a J’unKonian wife, and while she was mostly human passing, he had held sympathies with those who were not. He had opened up the basement of a warehouse he owned, allowing a makeshift bar to spring up. 

After Driftwood, however, he boarded it up. 

There was one way in and one out; the stairwell. Aliens trapped in by a DEO squad were sitting ducks.  

“They said there was a gun. I couldn’t see. I think maybe the bar tender pulled out a shotgun or-” 

“I’m sorry,” Kara interrupted, “The agents said there was a gun?”

“Well, they said there was a weapon,” Tina stressed, “There was so much confusion and shouting and Stephen stood up just as they-” 

Tina’s voice wavered, and she dropped her head. 

Kara glanced at James, and leaned forward to rest a hand on Tina’s knee, crate creaking under her. “It’s okay, take your time.”

The other three aliens seemed equally affected, shuffling this way and that. 

“T-the force of the shots sent him backwards onto the table. A-and then his knees buckled and he fell right down in front of me and I knew-” Tears gently trekked down her cheeks, falling and stained the grey concrete floor with splashes of green. She wiped furiously at her eyes with a balled up sleeve. “I-I’m sorry I haven’t thought about it like this is so long.” 

Kara picked up a multi-pack of orange juice from the floor, carefully tearing it open. She unwrapped the straw from the side, and popped it into the carton, before offering it out to Tina. The Gluska took it with a wet laugh, sipping at the juice box for a second to regain her composure. 

Quietly, she confessed, “I think maybe it was Stephen they were looking for.” 

Kara tilted her head. “Why do you think that?”

“He’d been an inmate at Fort Rozz. He was involved in helping eco-terrorists or something on Krypton.” 

James’ pen froze on the page, but with a cough from Kara he continued to write. She hoped none of the four species in front of her could hear how her heartrate had leaped. 

“When Astra tried to reform the group of kryptonians, he didn’t want to take part. We weren’t their race, after all. He just took me into the city and we tried to build a better life together.”    

Panic was spiking in Kara’s head. “Fort Rozz is how your brother got to Earth?”

“I was visiting him with our mom when it was pulled to Earth.” Tina sipped a little more at the juice box, and took a long shuddering breath. “She died- um- she’d gone to the bathroom and wasn’t in a secured part of the ship when we crashed.”

In Kara’s mind, guilt shook the room. It had been her pod that had brought Fort Rozz. The naive part of her had thought that the prison was secure enough to have everyone on board survive the impact. How stupid had she been? Had she even given thought to those inmates other than when she was being directed by the DEO to capture and destroy them? 

“Two years later, when rumours about Astra and Non started circulating again, I was so mad.” Tina chewed the end of her straw, shaking her head. “If she hadn’t gotten my brother involved with whatever her plan was, he wouldn’t have been in Fort Rozz, and we wouldn’t have been here and-” 

“Coming back to that day,” Kara cut in, clasping her hands on her lap and trying not to think about that reunion with her aunt, “What happened after the shootings?”

Tina glanced again at the two aliens who had given their testimony before her. “Everything was really quiet. I remember biting my fist in case they got angry that I was crying.” 

“What did the agents do?” James asked.

“There was this agent who took charge. She had short brown hair, maybe red. Young face. She was really mean.” 

Kara’s world slowed to a trickle, and all that existed was Tina’s voice, still rough from the tears. “She told us to put our hands behind our heads and not move...otherwise the same thing would happen to us.”

James stared openly at Kara, and had she been in her right mind, she would have given him a nudge to maintain his professionalism and keep any judgement to outside of this interview. But chains linked together in rapid succession. Old memories and new revelations coming together to paint one solid picture. 

Heat vision searing through the A.I. of her mother as she screamed her grief, Astra pleading with her not to fight, and then her broken body on the ground. She remembered the rage she had felt at J’onn, how she had completely missed the green suit that Alex donned. 

That green sword that she had fought with under Myriad; she had sliced it through Astra’s heart with the comfort of her own mind. 

“Then what happened?” Kara said calmly.

“They took my brother’s body away and I...never saw him again,” Tina replied, clutching the juice box. 

Kara watched a dribble of juice come out of the straw. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?”

“Who would we go to? The police?” Tina scoffed. “They’d never help us.”

_ Maggie would have _ , Kara thought. She would have done anything and everything in her power.

And now it was up to her to do everything in her power to make sure that this story would be stifled no longer. Alex had been an agent, a soldier. Simply following orders and routine. Now she was in charge, yet had already shown her true colours. Kara saw the ruthlessness of her actions, how she would do anything to get the job done, no matter the cost. 

She could have talked to Alex about this, but hadn’t she tried? Alex was still a soldier. 

And if there was one thing that Kara had learned in her time working with the DEO, it was that there was no talking to a leader who saw themselves as a soldier.  

~

Alex didn’t feel right when she left the conference room. It was like they had unscrewed her head from her neck and then twisted it back on the wrong way. She palmed just below her hairline, trundling towards the room with the Cadmus murderboard. 

Maggie looked up as she entered, bouncing a pen against a notebook. The same one, Alex noticed, that she had taken to Europe with her. 

“Hey. How was that?”

Alex sighed and sank into a chair opposite. “About as exciting as you can imagine.”

Quirking her lips, Maggie unlocked her phone and scrolled through it for a beat. “Did you see Cross’ speech this afternoon?”

“I did, and I got grilled on it.” Alex adjusted the knives at the back of her suit so she could slink even lower in the chair. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to stop the rising panic in her throat that this job was going to get too overwhelming for her. “Honestly, I think he was one crowd-rousing statement away from exposing our organisation.”

Maggie didn’t reply immediately, but when she did it was quiet. “Would that be so bad?”

Alex stiffened, gradually lowering her gaze. “You believe it.”

The detective glanced up but quickly looked away again. “What?”

“Kara’s story. You believe it happened.”

“I…” Maggie didn’t have to confirm or deny the claim; it was written on her face.

“I was already an agent when this incident is supposed to have taken place, you know that, right?” Alex watched her carefully, watched the real question sink in before she asked it. “Do you think I could have done this?”

Maggie methodically locked her phone and set it down. She flattened her palms on either side of her notebook to brace herself before finally looking up. “Tell me it isn’t true.” 

“It’s not, Maggie.” Alex sat straight up. The facade that they had played up, the sterile professional distance they kept, crumbled as her desperation leaked through. Maggie  _ had  _ to believe her. “It’s not true.”

Maggie’s eyes darted between hers, and then she nodded imperceptibly. “I believe you.”

Alex swallowed and whispered, “Thank you.”

With another nod, Maggie reached down into her bag and pulled out two wrapped subs. She slid one across to Alex, who just about caught it in her haze. 

“I know it’s more like lunch than dinner, but I got your favourite,” she explained.

Alex unwrapped the sub, smiling faintly. “You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered.” 

Alex used to hate her lunch breaks. They usually fell right in the middle of when she was hitting the crux of her work. J’onn always insisted that she take it, rather than burn herself out. But when Maggie came along, she learned to love it. At first it was the simple delight of having a new friend, being able to toss stories across the table and see who could get the other to splutter out a mouthful of breadcrumbs first. And then came countless lunches they had shared as a couple, just the two of them in the DEO canteen. Conversations were carried out with straight faces above the tabletop, and betrayed with flirtatious games of footsie going on below. 

“Anyway, we’re still digging into the link between Cross and Cadmus,” Maggie said, wiping her mouth with a napkin and flipping to a page in her notebook that had more scores than words remaining, “I might not be an agent, but I think we did good work over there. Things are coming together here.”

Alex swallowed, reaching for a bottle of water and twisting open the cap. “You’d make a great agent.” 

“But maybe not the kind to lead troops into a fray like you, huh?” The question was directed more at the murderboard that she stared at, but Alex played with a torn edge of her wrapper. 

“Well, you did most of the leading in Europe.” 

Despite everything, Alex realised the innuendo only when Maggie’s eyes snapped to her, eyebrow arched. She had meant to reinforce what she had said before. Maggie  _ would _ make a good agent, one she trusted with her life. It had been proven long before Europe. Yet the implications of  _ leading _ had switched them onto red hot tracks. 

“W-well what I meant was-” She scrunched her wrapper, and then backtracked. “Not that I don’t mean it, you were a great leader. Are, I mean, with task forces and directing people-”

Cavanaugh, her saviour, cut in before Maggie’s eyebrows crawled any further up her head. 

“Ma’am, Supergirl is reporting an ambush downtown.”

Alex stood, wrapper still curled in her fist. Honestly, she was surprised that Kara had taken her ear piece at all, considering that morning. “Is she overwhelmed?”

“She says she can handle it, but it’s your call, Ma’am.”

She toyed with the wrapper, transferring it from fist to fist as she weighed up the decision. A part of her was horrified that she was hesitating at all to send aid to her sister, but the urge to get fresh air and escape the DEO for an hour or so had been building since she made the call about the reservoir. 

Perhaps jumping into a fight after weeks without one would be the perfect way to clear today and all of its smog right out of her system. 

She turned to Maggie, who was trying to get a pen to work by scratching on the edge of the notebook. “You brought your bike, right?”

Maggie stopped scratching. “Yeah.”

“Grab your helmet and meet me at the front door in two minutes.”

Excitement lit up her eyes, and she flicked the notebook closed, shoving it back into her bag. “On it.”

Cavanaugh frowned, watching Maggie’s hasty exit. “Ma’am?”

“What can I say?” Alex held the wrapper out to him, and he took it without question. She grinned, patting his shoulder. “I miss the field too much.”

~

Racing down the back streets of National City shoulder to shoulder with Alex was not how she envisioned her night going. 

Alex had slapped an ear piece into her palm without explanation, mounting her bike and slotting on her helmet. Maggie had barely gotten the thing in her ear and started her engine before Alex had ripped out of the underground parking lot. Yanking on her helmet and grimacing at the pressure against her cartilage, Maggie roared off after her ex.

A crackle, and then Agent Cavanaugh was in her ear.  _ “Detective Sawyer, you’ll be taking the next right.” _

“You guys tracking me?”

_ “We’re not tracking you, we’re tracking the ear piece.”  _

Maggie saw the junction, and slowed. Alex pulled ahead and took the right, but Maggie revved the bike and sped further forward, searching for another.   

_ “Detective Sawyer, that was not the correct-” _

“I’m going around the other side to cut them off.” She punctuated the statement with a sharp turn, gunning the bike down an alleyway. 

Her instincts were correct. She shot out of the alley to see Kara surrounded by four aliens. Alex was already there, kicking down the stand of her bike and tearing off her helmet. No sooner had she and Alex arrived than Guardian’s bike appeared from the other direction. The three of them effectively caged the hybrids in. 

At least, Maggie thought they were hybrids. Like human-sized skinless rabbits, the aliens were something straight out of the childhood nightmares Maggie had suffered from the first time she had seen  _ Watership Down _ . From what she could see, long strands of spit hung from their jaws, and their forearms were shrivelled against their chests with clicking talons.

Maggie pushed off her helmet and raced over to Alex’s side. “What the hell are those things?”

“Yugyugs.” Alex yanked a knife out of the back of her suit and handed it to Maggie. “You’re gonna need this.” She took off towards the closest Yugyug, shouting over her shoulder, “And avoid the claws!”

“Wait, Alex-”

But one of the hybrids had locked their sights on her. It shifted around with a huff, spit flying onto the tarmac. Keeping her gaze trained on it, Maggie moved the knife in her hand, unsure whether to grip it in a stabbing position, or keep the blade upwards and offensive. Her heart pounded in her chest, and then it sprung towards her in bounding leaps. 

It kicked out with with lithe hind leg, and Maggie ducked away, keeping the knife gripped in her fist. She circled around the alien, waiting for its next strike. Unfortunately, she underestimated the power in its punch. It caught her awkwardly on the shoulder, sending her swirling down to the ground. 

The knife clattered out of her hand as her back hit the tarmac hard. The Yugyug pounced, its muscled legs pinning her shoulders. A trail of drool from its jaws splattered by her head, but Maggie’s eyes were fixed on the razor sharp talons of its shrivelled forepaws. 

The Yugyug froze up suddenly, then toppled to the side. A blade jutted from the back of its neck. A hand appeared in her vision, and she saw Guardian above her. 

Standing, Maggie brushed herself down and nodded. “Thanks.”

“You’ll need this,” James said gruffly, holding out a black handle. 

“Ugh, you’re giving me a handle with no blade?”

“Flick it out.” 

She did, and with a shearing sound of metal against metal, a machete blade shot out. “Nice.”

“Go for the throat!” Kara shouted, kicking a hybrid back and chasing it as it fell.

Alex was trying to aim with her gun, its blue glow emanating in the dark. The Yugyug faced off with her, springing closer. With a grunt, Alex gave up and drew the other knife from her suit. 

James took a few steps backwards, and then inched closer to Maggie as their Yugyug swiped at him. Not taking his gaze off of the threat, he took the shield from his back and covered them. She got his plan straight away, and clutching the machete. 

Patiently, she waited for her opening, and with the claws caught on the top of the shield, she found it. With a high chopping motion, she sliced the blade into the soft flesh below its gaping jaw. With a howl, it fell, its legs flung twitching in to the air.

Alex was already standing over a Yugyug, laying still on its stomach. A purple tongue lolled out of its mouth. Kara was the last to dispatch her foe. Maggie saw a familiar slump to her shoulders that came when Supergirl had the realisation that she would have to kill, rather than subdue. 

“Four this time,” Alex appraised, as the group gathered together in the centre.

“Again, from a planet whose species aren’t advanced enough to come to Earth,” Kara pondered, the heel of her boot carefully turning over one hind leg so that its grimy paw poked up into the air.

James took off his helmet, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Yuguria is like Snarz. It’s a planet with no civilisation. There’s grass that grows as tall as buildings, and flowers that get as big as cars,” Kara explained, spreading her arms, “But unless they were captured and smuggled here...”

“They’re being trafficked in,” Maggie agreed. 

Kara nodded, and then tipped her head. “They look like giant evil bunnies, don’t they?”

Maggie shivered in disgust at the wrinkled, hairless form. “Yeah, I think I’ll be skipping the precinct’s next Easter Egg hunt.”

Alex took in the four lifeless Yugyugs, and then pulled out her phone. “The pick up teams are five minutes out.”

“Speaking of teams,” Kara said firmly, “I was  _ handling _ it.”

“Well now it’s handled quicker,” Alex sniped, still tapping at her phone. 

Positioned between the sisters, Maggie couldn’t help but feel like the frostiness was adding a bite to the mild night air. James ran his palm over his scalp. Whether consciously or not, he lingered at Kara’s side, putting himself faithfully in her corner. The hunch of Alex’s shoulders was tight as she looked up from her phone and straight into Maggie’s eyes, questioning. 

Maggie felt like the three of them were holding their breath for her to say something, like she hadn’t learned the lines to the script they were supposed to be reading off. Unable to defuse the tension, Maggie scooped the DEO earpiece from her ear and gave it to Alex with a thin lipped smile. 

Alex turned away from them without a goodnight, straddling her bike and pulling away down the street. Kara wilted, James pretending to study a scratch on his armour.  

Maggie turned in a slow circle, taking in the hybrids. She had only seen the images that Alex had shown her of the two Ziovas, and of course, her run in with the alien from Snarz. The motionless Yugyugs didn’t seem capable of the violence they had encountered, not like the imposing figures of the other two species. She wondered if that was part of the plan. To weaponise seemingly harmless species and unleash them unto the naive populace. 

Kara tipped her chin back, listening to something only she could hear. “The DEO will be here any second.” 

Maggie faced them, handing the machete back to James. “Anyone wanna go for a drink?”

Kara looked at James, who popped the blade back down into the handle. “Yeah, I could use a drink.” He nodded his head towards her. “Kara?”

She looked at the remainder of the hybrids. “Meet you at the usual place in ten?”

At their affirmation, Kara shot off into the sky. Maggie crouched and lifted Alex’s knife from the tarmac, making a mental note to give it back tomorrow. Her knuckles scraped the ground, still damp from the showering rain that morning. While that particular storm may have passed, she knew from the lingering static in the air that a bigger one was headed their way. 

She and James mounted their bikes, replaced their helmets, and started off towards the alien bar, their friendships repairing as they went. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what you think :)


	6. 4x06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Election Day...

Election Day. The sun crept over the horizon.

All of the news outlets geared up for a momentous final sprint to the finish line. 

Despite it being the crack of dawn, Maggie was already at the precinct. She sat at her desk, strategizing a plan. The hybrid fear and the manufactured propaganda online had worked. Cross and Black were neck and neck in the polls, and with it being a midterm year, the odds were tipping increasingly in the opposition’s favour.    

She slumped low in her desk chair, swinging to and fro. She flipped back and forth through the pages of notes she had taken the night before in the DEO. Frowning, she read over a line declaring:  _ ‘don’t know which sextion that file 45B belongs to’.  _

She groaned, scribbling a hard  **_c_ ** into  _ sextion _ , and then dropped her pen. She could visualise how the mistake had occurred; Alex waving the two pages of 45B, projecting ideas about what the charts and graphs on them referred to. Pacing in that suit, wound up from an ongoing mission that Agent Cavanaugh was keeping her informed of, Alex had been fritzing with excess energy. Maggie’s subconscious had clearly wandered. 

Her mobile vibrated on her belt, and with another groan she pulled it out. 

“Sawyer,” she answered wearily.

_ “Armstrong here.” _

Maggie jumped, banging her knee on her desk. She sat up straighter in her chair, rubbing over the throbbing joint. “Commissioner, good morning.”

_ “Morning. You got a minute to come down to headquarters?” _

“If it’s urgent, sir.” Maggie looked at the orange glow from the morning sun seeping in slants over the bullpen floor. “With all due respect, with today being election day, I’m pretty eager to get one last shot at the campaign. See what I can dig up.”    

_ “Well, I suppose you’re right,”  _ Commissioner Armstrong grunted,  _ “I’ll call you on your extension, make sure this is a little more secure.” _

He hung up and a few seconds later her desk landline rang. She picked up the receiver. 

_ “You were saying, detective?”  _

“Alex- uh, Director Danvers and I have been doing through the paperwork from the briefcase over the last few weeks. Colkirk has signed off on several documents, but we still can’t work out who he is, his connection to Lillian, or what he does.”  

_ “You ruled out that Cross himself was part of Cadmus, right?” _

The chair creaked as Maggie pushed against its back. “We couldn’t find any evidence suggesting it. And all his people seem clean, too.”

_ “Have you thought about returning to London?” _

Maggie shivered, thinking about the cold warehouse floor. She had showered for a long time to ensure all of the grime had gotten out of her hair. “I don’t think there’s any point in that if we can’t figure out the connection to National City. And right now the only confirmed shipment was the first one. The second that those guys talked about has either slipped under the radar, or it never came.”

_ “The port authorities have been doing cargo checks, but so far, nothing.”  _ There were electric zips and clicks as if he was snapping together magnetics. _ “I’ve been keeping in touch with authorities up and down the coast, too.” _

“There’s still a lot of questions,” Maggie agreed. She was filled with a lame, childish kind of shame that belonged to remote situations, such as forgetting her homework on the kitchen table. 

She heard those clicks again, like they were counting the seconds. _ “Not to be trite, but what’s your first port of call today?” _

“Right now I’m gonna go get coffee, and then once polls are open, I’m gonna vote.” Her taste buds already stirred at the promise of decent roasted beans. “Then I’ll head over to the Cross rally in Temecula this afternoon.” 

_ “Isn’t that rally ticketed?” _

Maggie stood, flicking at the notebook as she pressed the landline against her ear with her shoulder. “Krasney managed to get Cynthia Linenhall on the guest list.”

_ “Ah, enjoy. And keep me informed.” _

“Yes, sir.”

Commissioner Armstrong hung up with another zip and click. She held the receiver and listened to the dead line for an interval, and then returned it to its cradle. Frustrated and defeated, she gave up on her notebook and grabbed her jacket.  

Two burly maintenance men were at the elevator, one inside and one out. The one hammering at something near the keypad grunted at the his colleague, who turned to look at Maggie with tired eyes. 

“It’s not working,” he said. 

“It was working when I came in less than an hour ago,” she said, slipping her arms through her jacket. 

“Not working now.”

Rather than get into a tussle with a man whose hands were more grease than skin, Maggie headed towards the stairwell. Trudging down each floor, she tried to centre herself with familiar yoga techniques and drive out the dread that had cemented her limbs from the moment she woke up. 

Going to the underground car park meant passing the holding cells. She doubted that the stench of urine and vomit from underage drinkers and bums sleeping off a rough night was going to cheer her up.  

The red brick corridor was a dozen degrees colder than the rest of the precinct, and she was grateful for her jacket at the rush of cool air at her neck. She eyed the snoring residents of the cell, stopping dead at the last. There wasn’t a drunk passed out, but a man sitting with his feet crossed at the ankles, tapping the knuckles of his thumbs together, patiently waiting to be released. 

His red hair, the sharp cut of his jaw, his shining boots moving along to a rhythm only he could hear-

“Colkirk,” she gasped. 

The man looked up in surprise, and she saw instantly that she had it wrong. So similar, but not enough. She nervously fixed the zip of her jacket. “Sorry, you look like-”

“Nope, right the first time,” the man said, uncrossing his ankles and stretching out his legs. 

She opened and closed her mouth. Her firearm felt heavy on her belt, letting its presence beneath her ribs suddenly be known. “I think it’s just a weird coincidence but...”

The man rest against the wall of cell, observing her carefully through the bars. “You’ve met Andy. He’s my brother.” 

Hearing the man’s accent, she searched for the intake officer on duty, but found the desk deserted. She picked up the clipboard, searching down the times as she wandered back towards Colkirk’s brother.

As she scanned down the records from the previous night shift, the man piped up again, “Please don’t tell me you slept with him.”

She smirked, flipping the page. “No, I haven’t slept with him.”  _ Philip Thomas Colkirk. Carjacking.  _ “But if you had a sister, I might have reconsidered.”

“Oh.”

_ Man was found attempting to steal a car from El Santo Square at 4:21am.  _

She glanced up. “Been here since after 4am?”

“I haven’t adjusted to the jetlag, yet,” the man replied, loosening the knot on his tie. 

“Carjacking?”

“It was a pretty car.” He pulled the knot free and let the tie hang loose. “From the look of the townhouse it was parked outside, I thought that the owner could afford to replace it.”

Maggie eyed the silver watch around his wrist, the prime leather of his shoes, and the exquisite cut of his suit. He could recognise wealth, that much was obvious. Which begged another question; “Why not just buy one yourself?”

He smiled sheepishly. “It was impulsive.” 

She turned back and poked through the messy desk until she found both his intake sheet and his arrest warrant. “You got a green card?”

“Nope.”

“Visa?”

“Nope.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not even gonna lie?”

“What’s the point? You’re just gonna look it up and find out I’m a liar.” He bent over and untied the laces of his left shoe, before retying them tighter. “Figured I’d save you some time.”

“Philip-”

“Tom,” he interrupted, doing the same with his right foot, “I go by Tom.”

Maggie paused, regarding him as he brushed dirt off the shiny toe of his shoe and sat back down. She spied mistakes in his arrest warrant and his intake sheet. Inwardly, she thought it was lucky the officer wasn’t present, because for the first time in weeks the opportunity to push forward her investigation was within reach.   

“How did you get here, Tom?” she asked.

“By boat.”

“Boat?”

“Long story.”

It twigged;  _ could he have come in with one of the shipments? _

“It’s clear you’re from money,” she bluffed, not wanting to betray what she already knew, “What’s a rich boy like you doing in a holding cell in National City?”

“My inheritance is in limbo.” His expression darkened. “My dear brother is trying to cut me out of it.”

If he was telling the truth, then he could be a potential ally. Maggie had found that people were more than happy to abandon loyalty and sell out their peers if there was a motive, and more often than not, that motive was financial gain. 

“You’re here to get your money,” she surmised.

“That and…” Tom’s face fell, and he smoothed down the front of his shirt. “I’m not happy with what he’s doing to our father’s company. I want the truth about what happened to a woman in London.”

Maggie tried not to let the clipboard clatter out of her hand. Carefully, she pried open the clasp at the top and tidied up the paperwork on it, buying herself time to process the revelation. She would put a safe bet on the incident he was referring to being her taking that pill in the warehouse. 

“You decided to derail that plan by trying to steal a car?”

Tom waved around the holding cell helplessly, but said nothing more.  

After weeks spent chasing a ghost, frustrated at the lack of results and aware of the countdown until election day, this was either the best coincidence of her life, or she was being set up. After all, she had stolen the briefcase and given it straight into the hands of the DEO. Perhaps this had been a cat and mouse chase with Mr Colkirk, except she had gotten the roles wrong. Maybe they had been chasing her down as much as she had been chasing them. 

“Your arrest warrant wasn’t completed properly. And you were caught  _ trying _ to steal a car,” she said, looking at the clipboard again, “What do you say I waive the charge and we go get breakfast so you can tell me more about your brother?”

Tom rose up, putting his palms on his knees. “That would be...nice.” 

There was a wariness in him that came from the uncertainty of taking any gift from a stranger, and once again Maggie realised that it was a dangerous toss up between trusting him, or mistaking his good acting for genuinity and letting herself walk right into a trap.  

“You like pancakes? I know a place.”

~

Columns of obsidian black servers towered as tall as the room, glowing with blue, green, red lights. They purred, the air static with the electrical energy. 

Alex had been to the archives a few times before, mostly for medical references. But now that she was director, she had access to everything that she was restricted from before. 

She walked along the length of the room, singling out the exact thing she had been searching for. She pressed her forefinger and thumb against a pad. The machine let out a happy thrill, and a slot slithered out. She reached in, digging until she withdrew a hard drive. Relocking the slot, she wandered down towards the viewing gallery.

Ever since Jeremiah hacked into the registry, a lot of confidential information had been downloaded and kept on physical drives that could only be biometrically scanned in or out. It was bulky, and Winn had protested, but J’onn had insisted the process be done. 

At the end of the archive room, there were a series of doors that led into booths. They each had a number of leather armchairs and a projector to screen the information on the hard drives. Alex entered one, closing the door behind her and plugging the drive into the computer. With a sigh, she sank down into an armchair.

As she waited for the videos to load, she thought about the blistering argument she had had with Kara as of this morning. 

_ “Why didn’t you just drop this, Kara?” _

_ “Because I’ve seen what it’s like on missions. I know things...happen. I know that you’re hiding this from me.”  _

_ “That’s a nice way of calling me a liar.” _

The computer chimed to life. The drive files loaded one by one, and Alex read their dates as they worked backwards. She waited until all were present, her stress simmering still as she thought about the argument. 

_ “Kara, if you force the President’s hand, the first thing people will call for is my resignation, and that’s only the first head that will roll.” _

_ “I didn’t name the DEO-” _

_ “Come on, Kara. Either these strangers will make their urban legend blow up into public knowledge, or they’ll push President Marsdin until she has to make a statement.” _

At last, the video she was looking for loaded. She glanced out of the glass panel in the door, checking if anyone else was in the archives. Satisfied she was alone, she clicked the file to play, and then settled back into the armchair. As it buffered, her heart lurched once again. 

_ “In my duty to protect-” _

_ “You’re a soldier, Alex. And now you’re in charge.”  _

_ “That ship that Cadmus sent to space, do you remember it? I risked my life to save them. I was a soldier then, too.” _

On the screen, a young woman stumbled backwards and fell flat on her back with a yelp. She sat up, tightened her ponytail, and rested her elbows on her knees. A man walked into the frame, offering her hand up. The woman huffed, and accepted the help, only to be swung back onto the mat only a few moments later. 

“Is that you?”

Alex jumped in surprise. She had gotten so lost in watching the old training video that she hadn’t noticed Brainy opening the door and entering the booth with her. 

“Yeah. I wasn’t very good.” She grimaced as J’onn flung her into a somersault and the past version of herself on screen slammed into the training mat once again. “I was a college flunkie that J’onn was determined to craft into a soldier.”

Brainy watched the screen in fascination. “He crafted well.”

She craned her neck, grinning at him. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Brainy.”

The timecode flipped rapidly, recording the exact points of every failure Alex had suffered as she trained to be J’onn’s right hand agent. Those early days, training for hours upon hours leaving her bruised and exhausted, made her question in which world this was any better than partying. 

“Supergirl has been accessing archive files this afternoon, too,” Brainy announced, rocking on his heels, “There must have been some kind of sentiment-”

“She what?”

Brainy eased back a step as she swung towards him. “Accessed old mission files-”

“What did she look at?” Alex snapped. 

“Files about Fort Rozz, old mission reports,” Brainy replied, “Mostly around the dates of 2012 to 2014-”

She leapt out of the chair, leaving Brainy gaping in the booth. Behind him on the screen, Alex and J’onn’s sparring continued.

~

_ Sally’s Corner _ wasn’t her favourite place in the world. Lukewarm coffee and soggy food left a lot to be desired, but it was close to the precinct and loaded with cops. If Maggie really was being set up, at least she had a chance of getting out of the trap. 

So far, Tom had detailed his visit to a town called Leefside for a friend’s funeral, how his personal method of grieving through getting wasted got him thrown out of almost every establishment in said town, and how one day two men approached him and told him about the woman in America.   

“Why not just fly over and see your brother?” Maggie asked.

“Well, if there’s something going on in the company, I want to see it first hand. I took the uniform and got on the boat.” 

They were briefly interrupted by a waitress setting down the plate of pancakes in front of Tom. She refilled their mugs with the coffee pot in her hand, and Maggie hid a grimace at the stench of over-roasted beans. 

“A boat, huh?” 

Tom slid his knife and fork out of the napkin. “It was being used by some group called Cadmus.” 

Maggie pretended to mull over the name for a few seconds. “What do they do?”

“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. He glanced at the waitress, who was now cleaning the vacated table across the aisle from them. Almost unnoticeable within the loose fitting uniform of  _ Sally’s Corner _ were ridges up her back. He tactfully lowered his voice. “But they were shipping weaponised aliens, probably developed in my father’s labs.”  

Maggie unlocked her phone, feigning as if she had just gotten a notification. Instead, she discreetly turned on her voice recorder, and pressed her phone face down. “Is Cadmus connected with your father’s labs?”

“Well, my father wasn’t a scientist, per say. He just had a lot of scientific friends,” he said, “Like Lillian Luthor.”

One of them had taken the other by the hand, and was leading them down the garden path, but as of now Maggie couldn’t tell if she was leading or being led. She took another swig of the charred coffee. 

“How friendly are we talking?”

“Pretty close. Same social circles, you know?” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, staring off out of the grimy window onto the street. “I thought after Lex went to prison that the company had cut ties.”

She waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, turned her attention to the trio that took up the table opposite. They were wearing I Voted stickers, and one of them wore a black cap with  _ Cross for California _ in white stitching. Lifting her gaze past them, she saw that the alien waitress and who she presumed was the manager locked in a heated debate, gesturing in the direction of the new customers. 

She diverted away, back to the man opposite, who had returned to his breakfast. “When was the last time you saw Lillian?”

“Dad’s funeral, eight months ago.” He stabbed at his food, mumbling, “Last time I saw my brother, too.”

“Eight months,” Maggie repeated. She tented her fingers in front of her, remembering when the word came down the line that Lillian had escaped custody, “You know she’s a fugitive?” 

“Really?” Tom blinked, again looked out at the street. “I didn’t know.”

The man in the black hat let out a barking laugh, loud enough for several customers to glance his way including a cluster of uniformed cops. Two turned their noses up at the cap, two didn’t.

Maggie snuck her phone up again, and turned off the recording. Then, she began a new one, choosing to vet him. If he was to prove useful to her, she wanted to know where he stood on alien rights. She’d had trouble enough with the force as it is. 

“How do you feel about aliens?”

Beside them, a waitress served the table of Cross voters. It wasn’t the alien. 

“They live their lives, I live mine. I have enough problems to think about without worrying if E.T. is watching me sleep.”

She squinted at the offhand language, but was satisfied that he wasn’t forthcoming on the anti-alien agenda that Cadmus was known for. “Your brother’s company?”

“Yes?”

“What is it? Your dad wasn’t a scientist, but owned labs and had ties to Lillian Luthor?”

Tom nodded, finishing his food. He laid his knife and fork neatly onto the plate, and again wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Dad started in market research, always had a hand in political branding back home. But Andy rebranded Airedale Consulta. He wanted to take it global, especially here in America.”

“So, I’m guessing he’s been running some numbers for one of those two-” Maggie pointed between two posters on the wall of the diner; one of Harrison Cross, the other of Valerie Black. Both campaign slogans had been crossed out, and the candidates’ faces had been doodled on in red and black marker. 

“Yeah. They use people’s data to figure out what kind of things would persuade them, and then barrage them with targeted marketing. You’re a mother of two younger kids? They’re gonna scare you with cuts to school funding to get you to vote for their guy, who promises not to do that.” Tom shrugged. “That kinda thing.”

Maggie thought about the traction that the Supergirl video had gotten. Alex had explained that it was tampered with, or had been fixed to look more chaotic and harmful. It really was no coincidence that those stories gained so much attention, real or not.

“As for the labs, there’s a ton of assets also tied into the company. When dad started AC, any profit he made went into buying up desolate properties. He’d take old factories and refurbish them into new facilities, and then lease them out to other companies. Soon he was expanding it to all across Europe.” 

“What kind of companies?”

“He made specialised spaces like labs. Chemical treatment plants, that kind of thing.”

The waitress from before ducked in again, swinging the coffee pot in question. Maggie shook her head, but Tom took the offer of a free refill. She caught the sneer that the waitress gave the table of Cross voters before she meandered back around to the kitchen. 

“Anyway, it was a good strategy,” Tom continued. He played with the end of his tie, which he had reknotted on the way to the diner. “It let smaller tech and bio-development companies really get a good start up. Since they were renting a fully furnished space, they didn’t have to worry about affording to buy one.”

“Is that how your father got involved with-” She stopped short. He had mentioned Cadmus, but she wasn’t sure what he was oblivious to. She tried a tamer angle, “-Luthor Corp?”

“Dad was always hosting things for corporations. Once he’d made enough money, we moved in the same social circles as the Luthors. Lex and Andy were practically inseparable when we were younger, but I don’t know the guy.” 

For the first time, she cracked a smile. He held up his palms, as if to physically distance himself from Lex Luthor and his notorious deeds. “Why do you say that?”

Tom gave her a pointed look, not to be patronized, and then slugged at his coffee. He toyed again with his tie, a fondness growing on his features. “I was a little closer with Lena. As we got older, and all the stuff that comes along with it...Andy wasn’t exactly pleased about that.” 

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” He dropped his tie with a sigh. “Kids.”

Maggie reached for her phone, stopping the recorder for a second time. She clicked a web search for Airedale Consulta, and there in the  _ About Us _ section was a short blurb about the CEO, Andrew Colkirk. His thin-lipped smile was captured in a circle at the bottom.

There he was, the man from the warehouse. At last, the final component clicked into place, and the circuit sparked to life. As the light bulb twinkled in her mind, a thousand questions were answered. 

Colkirk had conducted market research for an anti-alien candidate and produced the most impressionable campaign, while Lillian used that old connection to create the next line of threats to scare the populace and drive up anti-alien sentiments. She saw now why Cadmus had retreated to Europe, why she and Alex had been chasing leads on a continent across the ocean, why the property renters Douglas & Foster had seemed to be a front.

She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Lillian had provided her knowledge and connections in order for Airedale Consulta to fish for their first catch in the US. In which case, that meant Cross could just be an experimental run. 

But how was Colkirk really benefiting from the exchange? Had he seen the profit that could be made if they broke into American politics? Was this a red flag for the future? Certainly the addition of American property would add a few zeros to the value of the company’s assets.

But while property brought prosperity, it was politics that brought power-

“He’s done something really bad, hasn’t he?”

She had almost forgotten the man was there, but after refreshing herself with how Andrew looked, she could see the family resemblance. “Why do you say that?”

“Because a detective just bailed me out of jail and took me to breakfast. And then got me to spill all the family secrets.” He nodded at the phone that she had laid down somewhere between realisations. “And is pretending that I don’t know she’s googling my brother’s company.”

Maggie clicked her phone locked, turning it face down. For a long while, they stared at each other, and then he leaned forward. 

“Look, I don’t know who that woman in London was, and I don’t know what Cadmus is. But I don’t trust Lillian Luthor, and I want a word with Andrew.”

“And then you can make bank, right?” she said.

“It’s not...just about the inheritance.” Tom made a face. “If my brother is hurting people, I want to know why.”

She saw it now, like she had rubbed wet thumbs into filthy glass and made eyeholes. The man in front of her was just a hapless witness to the entire thing. But then again, she realised that he could be the key to taking down this network once and for all, and in that case, there was no time to waste.

“You got another one of those fancy suits?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“How’s this-” She leered over the table. “-I’ll take you back to your hotel so you can shower and change, and you come with me this afternoon to a rally out in Temecula.”

His brow pinched. “A rally?”

“It’s election day. Thought you might want that shot of seeing your brother.”

Tom sat back, comprehension dawning in his eyes. “Considering I was in a cell this morning, this is an awful lot of trust to put in a stranger.”

“Well, I’m not hiding my agenda. I also want to know why your brother is hurting people,” Maggie said, gesturing to the diner, “I’d say we have common interests.”

“Sounds like a day at the races.” 

~

Kara waited until the fourth visit to the victims until she decided to confront Alex again. They had been more or less estranged since she had pushed ahead with the article and Alex’s dealings with her had been curt during missions. Sister night had been abandoned two weeks in a row, Alex begging off with excuses about concentrating on Cadmus in the run up to the election.

She tried not to be wounded, but the truth was that after the Yugyugs, there had been a lack of any Cadmus-related activity. Perhaps, she considered, it was just an excuse to work alongside Maggie. 

The confrontation this morning in the DEO had been explosive to say the least and she was still reeling several hours later.

A knock on the door drew her out of her reverie. Nia hovered at the entrance to her office. “Hey, Kara. Thanks for letting me proofread your first big exposé at CatCo.”

Kara brightened, wheeling her chair back and standing. “No problem.”

“I do have a few concerns though,” Nia said, approaching the desk as Kara waved her in. She shuffled through the pages, tattooed with notes and question marks. “This black ops organisation, you don’t name them. Is that because of the victims weren’t made aware of it, or because they fear that naming it will lead to a retaliation on their community for speaking out?”

Kara took the printed article, standing the pages upright and propping them into a neat pile again. “There will be no retaliation, I can assure that.”

Nia narrowed her eyes. “ _ You’re _ the one choosing to withhold the name.”

“Yes.”

“Personal reasons?”

“That’s my business.”

Kara watched the ideas forming in Nia’s mind. Had she dated an agent? Was she betraying the confidences of a government contact? 

James entered, saving Kara’s weak pokerface before it collapsed completely. 

Even before he could speak, Nia shook off the airy politeness and questioned him directly. “Have you informed Lena about the article?”

Surprised at the lack of greeting, he leaned against a cabinet. “No. There’s no need.”

“She owns CatCo.” When all she got was twin blank stares, she pointed accusingly at the paper on Kara’s desk. “This is a politically charged article.”

“She’s a corporate owner, we’re the reporters. We control the content,” James said. It was firm, and conclusive, as if that was that. 

Kara saw the protest blazing still inside Nia, but the woman lifted her chin and said, “Few grammatical errors is all.”

They watched her go, and then James came to inspect the array of paperwork on Kara’s desk. There were printouts of DEO missions that were a number of years old, some of them being Alex’s first few turns out as an agent. She had chosen those logs very carefully, consciously combing them for mistakes.

“Maybe this should wait, Kara,” he said, “It’s election day, which means this is gonna get snowed under.”

“No, that’s exactly why we  _ should  _ go ahead tonight,” Kara retook her seat, bouncing slightly on the springs, “The media is saturated with political op-eds right now. This is gonna stand out.” 

He lifted one of the pages on her desk, and Kara saw that it was the list of 16 names that had perished in the warehouse basement. She looked down and began to read the changes and notes that Nia had decorated the margins with.

“Have you spoken to Alex?”

Alex, who would not listen to reason. Who was stubborn and steadfast. It would take her world being shaken up to change her mind. Kara had to stand on her own two feet, separate from Alex. And if this was how she pushed forward to do it, so be it. 

Without looking up from the article, Kara said, “I gave her enough warning.”

He read over the list of 16 again, and then replaced the sheet, saying, “It’s a shame.”

Kara wasn’t sure if he was talking about the list of 16, or the complexity of the situation. She hummed in agreement all the same. 

~

“What’s my name again?”

“Cynthia.”

Maggie fixed her hair in the mirror of the sun visor, and then slid on the fake glasses. “And what do I do?”

“You’re a business woman, currently looking into property to expand in National City,” Tom said, repeating what she had drilled into him on the drive up, “Preferably, you want to do a deal with Douglas & Foster.”

“Fast learner,” Maggie appraised, slapping the sun visor up, “Let’s go.”

Getting into the vineyard proved easy enough. She flashed the gold ticket that Krasney had procured, tugging Tom along as her plus one. Getting further than security, however, proved to be the challenge. 

They were no more than a few paces past the entrance when they were intercepted by a waiter balancing a tray of champagne flutes. 

“It’s a beautiful vineyard, isn’t it?” the waiter said, lowering the tray enough for them to both take a glass.  

“Amazing,” Maggie agreed. 

The waiter grinned. “Is this your…?”

_ Shit, _ Maggie panicked. She had been so split between trying to toe the line of trusting Tom and drilling her backstory into him, she hadn’t realised the oversight. Would he be safe to play along as himself? Or would that trigger a recognition that she couldn’t afford? 

“Fiancee,” Tom replied. 

Maggie forced the surprise away, playfully nodding along. 

The waiter’s eyes gleamed, but then narrowed in on Maggie’s hand around her glass. “But no ring?”

_ Shit again.  _

“Well, I was going to get a ring,” Tom said, glancing at her, and then up at the leafy trees all around them, “But Cynthia wanted that money to go towards saving trees in Borneo. She’s so passionate about conservation-” Maggie forced herself to make it seem natural when he slung an arm around her shoulders, “-That’s why I love her.”

“Amazing. That’s so amazing,” drawled the waiter, before he nodded and went off on his merry way, throwing back, “Enjoy your day.”

Maggie nudged his ribs with her elbow. “Nice save.”

He extracted his arm from around her shoulders, fixing his cufflink. “Sorry, first thing that came to mind.”

“Good to know you can think on your feet.”

A campaign volunteer who had a  _ Vote Cross _ pin on each lapel was handing out pamphlets and flyers to attendees who passed. Maggie smiled politely and took one. She leafed through it, skimming the policies and promises that Cross had advocated for in the race. 

She stopped at the final page, seeing the logos for various government agencies - including the DEO. 

“What the hell?” she hissed, flipping the page back and forth. While the actual text didn’t mention the organisation, the emblem was there for everyone to see. She looked around, seeing other attendees reading from the leaflets.

“You okay?” Tom asked, scanning through his own. 

“Yeah,” she said. 

_ If Cross got elected, would he have any real influence on the DEO and its practises? _ she wondered. It was a federal organisation, so surely he wouldn’t have the authority. Unless he got federal support…

She realised now the extent of the prospective power Cadmus could wield if it dug its claws into political figures. If the policies described and advocated for at these kinds of rallies were an indication, then dangerous times were on the horizon. 

Suddenly, Tom grabbed her elbow and wheeled her around to the other side of the tree. Before she could react, he hissed, “That man over there was with Lillian at my dad’s funeral.”

Narrowing her eyes, Maggie peered around the tree. “Who is he?”

“Bradley? Bradford?” Tom shook his head. “Something beginning with B.”

Maggie leaned back against the rough bark, snapping open her bag and rooting for her phone. “You’re sure?”

“I swear.”

Trying her best not to raise any suspicion, Maggie leaned around the tree and zoomed in on the man as far as she could. She snapped a few pictures, and then sent them off to Alex.  _ Cadmus operative at this rally? _

Within seconds, Alex replied.  _ I know him. He was there when I went after Cadmus. Dad called him Bradshaw. I’ll run facial recognition to confirm.  _

“Bradshaw?” she prompted.

“Yes!” Tom answered, nodding his head emphatically.

“Let’s get out of here,” Maggie said, scrunching the leaflet in her hand and throwing it into a trash can that she passed, “Can’t imagine the speech has any new material.” 

~

“So long as princess doesn’t use her heat vision, these should hold her back for a while.” 

He had been watching in the shadows long enough that a cramp had developed in an ankle. He shifted his position, and then continued to observe. Three men walked around four clothed figures. They were like statues waiting to be unveiled, but he had a feeling that it wasn’t bronze underneath the tarps. 

As Maggie drive back from Temecula, he had jumped onto his phone accessed company records for the first time in months. A dummy brand called Douglas & Foster seemed to be the placeholder for the company buying up properties in America. The most recent acquisition was an empty office space downtown, and it was there that he told Maggie to head. She warned him to be careful, and gave him her number, assuring she would keep the engine running downstairs.

Tom waited for the two men to load the first figure onto a wheeled trolley and cart it off. Only then did he step out from behind the wall he’d used as cover. 

“So it’s true,” he announced.

Colkirk whipped around in alarm at the sound of his brother’s voice. It quickly dulled into disdain. 

“Good to see you, Philip,” he snarked.

Tom stopped between two of the remaining figures. “What the hell are these things?”

Colkirk reached out and yanked the tarp of the third, and there towered a creature like Tom had never seen. His mouth dropped at the broad wings, black skin and talon-like claws. 

“It’s an alien, Philip, you’ve seen them before.”

“Nothing like that.” 

Colkirk made a noise of disinterest. He slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded as the men returned with the trolley. They hoisted a second, motionless alien, and then wheeled it off towards an elevator at the back of the wide, empty space. The squeak of the wheels and their footsteps echoed off of the walls.  

“So it’s true,” Tom pushed again, “You’re hand in hand with Lillian and all her scheming.”

His brother’s face flashed with venom at the name. He pointed a finger. “Stay out of it.” 

“Stay out of-”

“I haven’t seen you since the funeral.” Colkirk shook his head, suddenly puzzled at the lack of explanation for the fact Tom had appeared as if from thin air. “What are you even doing in America, anyway?”

Tom began to answer when Colkirk’s phone rang. He held up a finger and answered it. Whatever was rushed out on the other side made his brother’s mouth twist. “You think he’s conceding? Right then.” 

No sooner had he hung up than he was dialling another number. “Turn them on and prep them as soon as possible...yes...Black’s HQ.”

Horror eclipsed Tom as he realised exactly what the four aliens were for. Just like rest of the world, he could turn on the international news any night of the week and see Superman or Supergirl battling any number of foes. He cursed himself for being so naive with the connection to Lillian Luthor. 

Lex had to get that streak from somewhere.

He gritted his teeth. “This is not what dad-”

“This is exactly what dad would have wanted.”  

Colkirk rounded on Tom, and the emotionless stare sent ice down his spine. “Has it never crossed your mind, once, why you’re the failure in the family?” He put one polished shoe in front of another. “You’re one of  _ them _ .” 

Tom’s eyes darted from his brother to the figures on either side of him. “You mean- wait-”

“It’s true!” The laugh Colkirk let out was mirthless and hollow, ringing around the empty office space. “Apparently mummy couldn’t keep her hands off the gardener.” 

“But dad-”

“Our father wasn’t ours, Pip. Just mine.” 

The elevator slid open and the two men marched for their third carry, but neither brother broke the stare. Tom’s throat closed over as Colkirk took another step forward.

“ _ Your _ father wasn’t even human.”

“You’re lying.”

Colkirk slipped his hands back into his pockets, watching the men in their diligent duty. “Craig the gardener, do you remember him? I mean, his name wasn’t  _ really _ Craig. Didn’t matter to mother.” 

Tom shook his head. “No.”

“That’s why dad was so hard on you. Everytime he looked at you, he remembered that his wife got bred by an alien.” 

As if the vitriol had slapped him, Tom looked down at the bare concrete ground. “We’re only half brothers.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Pip.” Colkirk turned on his heel as the elevator opened again. “We’re not brothers at all.”

Rooted to the spot, Tom stayed there as the last alien was carted away by the two men, and with the sliding shut of the doors, he was alone. The hum of the elevator reverberated around the empty office space. 

He stood there in the crater of the bomb dropped on him, struggling and failing to put the pieces together. Frustration built as memories broke apart around him with this new knowledge, years of pent up pain and family dramatics. 

Cracking, hot tears of anger welled up in his eyes. He took a single pace forward, ready to confront his brother and quick possibly throw him from the high flat roof he presumed they had headed up to, but it reminded him of the more pressing matter of the alien attack.   

He wasn’t sure he could stop it alone. He dug his phone of out his pocket. It trembled in his hand, blurring through his agonising tears. He thought about this woman who he knew nothing about, and his brother who he knew everything about, and that made the decision for him. 

He jabbed her number.

_ “Tom-?” _

“They have some of those weaponized aliens. Something about Valerie Black’s HQ. They’re on the roof now,” he managed.

_ “Okay. I’m on my way up, and I’m bringing a friend.” _

It happened in mere seconds. He counted twenty four from the call’s end to a red and blue blur soaring towards the building. He rushed to the windows, but was knocked back as an impact rocked the structure. Even through a number of floors, he could hear the thuds and screeches of combat. 

The elevator pinged and a flustered Colkirk reappeared beside him.  

“She must have gotten tipped off. Get the bunker ready,” he shouted behind him at the two men who remained in the elevator. He swooped around, grabbing a laptop bag and a number of black and white devices from the floor. Noticing Tom still there, he bared his teeth and grabbed at his collar. “You’d better hope you had nothing to do with that tip off.”

Tom shoved him backwards. He was ready to swing, but Colkirk darted away with his loot. Averting from the elevator, he dashed into an emergency exit, and Tom heard him thundering down a stairwell.

He pursued, but used his surge of wonder and adrenaline to race up the stairs. He burst out onto the roof in time to see a woman lashing one of the winged aliens out of the air. He jumped to the side as it crashed down against the entrance to the stairwell. 

Without a pause, she blocked assaults from both sides, kicking out. It was only with a whip of her crimson cape that Tom actually realised she was flying. 

He ducked and dived out of the way as she fought the four assailants. At one point she grabbed the helicopter from the landing pad and launched it at them. It crashed into the corner of the roof and went up in a ball of smoke and fire. 

The aliens reacted, scuttling away from the blaze, and it was then that Tom remembered what he had heard his brother telling the two men.

“They’re heat sensitive!” he shouted.

The woman dropped to the landing pad, shooting him an inquisitive look, and then turned her attention back to the quartet. They had formed a line, and were closing in, clacking their claws.   

A beam shot from her eyes, searing the ground and causing the aliens to hiss. She pressed closer, the beam caging them in until they were practically crawling over each other in the corner of the roof, pinned between the heat of the beam and the burning helicopter. They clawed at their eyeballs, letting out mewls of agony, and then all at once collapsed unconscious into a limp pile. 

The beam ended. The woman straightened up, brushing her blonde hair from her shoulders.  

“You must be Maggie’s friend,” he said. She rounded on him, and he saw the crest on her suit.

She tilted her head. “Maggie Sawyer?”

Tom nodded, and took in the outfit more closely, “I guess that makes you Supergirl?”

The woman planted her fists on her hips. “You must be new.” She rose up, hovering effortlessly a few feet off of the scorched concrete. “Welcome to National City.”

And without further ado, she launched herself into the sky and hurtled away. 

“Welcome indeed,” he murmured, watching her figure retreating into the skyline. 

The door banged behind him, and he spun to see a breathless Maggie, bent over at the knees. “Gone?”

“Supergirl is your friend?”

Maggie was still breathing hard as she trundled up to him. She ignored his question in favour of staring at the pile of limp aliens and the smoking wreckage of the helicopter. She sighed and took out her phone. A few punches of her thumbs and she pressed the phone to her ear.

“Another friend?” he asked.

She grinned, winking and turning away.

“Alex, it’s me…”

~

A few hours later, and the bar teemed from wall to wall. Some were clustered around the television screens, or hopping impatiently at the bar to be served. Others were so squashed into the booth that Maggie wasn’t sure how they got either in or out. 

As it was, she squirmed her way towards a now familiar figure, hunched on a bar stool. 

“Hey, you found this place,” she said. 

Tom looked up and smiled. He was nursing two glasses of scotch, and slid one over her. “Yeah, followed your instructions.”

“Thanks for the tip off.” Maggie wrangled herself onto an opposing stool, cautious at the unsteady wobble of the uneven legs. Settled, she saw the gloomy expression on his face, so sombre compared to the rowdy atmosphere of the bar. “You okay?”

“When I confronted Andrew...” His throat bobbed, and he curled his scotch closer to him. “I found out that my dad isn’t-wasn’t-  _ actually _ my dad.”

Maggie blew out a breath. She knew he had been solemn when she dropped him off at his hotel, but she hadn’t expected this. Around them, laughter erupted at something on the mounted televisions. “God, I’m sorry,” she offered.

“I guess I just...” Tom shook his head. “It’s a lot.” 

At the pool table, six figures muddled around, passing the cues to and fro as they each took shots at their leisure. Maggie remembered Alex apologising for dropping a bomb on her, and thinking back on it, she realised she should have seen their crossed wires in the hope on Alex’s face.

Tom stared hard into his scotch. “Do you believe in the whole blood is thicker than water thing?”

“No,” Maggie answered. 

He looked up in surprise at the immediate answer, flashing a sheepish smile. “Daddy issues, too?”

She gave him a pointed look in a warning, and then relaxed into an easy grin. She raised her glass, swirling it slightly. “I think that family can be chosen.”

“Chosen?”

She nodded, watching the even swishes of the liquid. “So long as there’s love and trust and support there, it doesn’t matter. The people you can chose are just as important and valid as the people you can’t. For me, family can mean by blood, or by water.” She tipped the glass towards him. “Or, maybe even by scotch.”

He lifted his glass, knocking it against hers. “Cheers.”

From under the mounted television, a ear-splitting roar went up. Drinks sloshed over the floor as arms were thrown into the air, the patrons cajoling each other. Maggie watched the final confirmed numbers 

“Confirmed. Harrison Cross lost,” she sighed, relief pricking at every cell in her body, “I’ll drink to that.”

“Good. The city is safer for it.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Good? That’s a change from earlier.”

“My father- my  _ real  _ father-” Tom emphasised, “-Was an alien.”

Realisation dawned, and Maggie tipped her head. “You’re half and half?” 

“Yeah.” Tom’s eyes skittered around the bar, as if even those who were visibly from off-world would berate him for this fact. “I don’t really know what that means.”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything. You’re human passing, after all.” 

She winked, finishing her scotch. With a hiss through her teeth, she groped in her jacket for her wallet, and felt her phone vibrating instead. She wiggled it out, and saw Krasney’s ID. 

Pressing the phone to one ear, she pushed a fingertip in the other to drown out the cheers of the bar. “Captain, can you hear me?”

_ “Sawyer. Have you been talking to your ex in the last hour?” _

With the inflection in his tone, she knew that there was only one woman he could be referring to. “No, why?”

_ “You might wanna ask what her response is to her little sister’s article.” _

Maggie drew upwards, suddenly disconnecting from the triumphant, celebratory atmosphere around her. Tom’s brow furrowed as she grew unsettled in the booth, keeping the phone pinned between her ear and her shoulder as she reached for her jacket. 

_ Kara’s published it. _

~

She shared the elevator with a rosy-cheeked man who was peeling  _ Vote Black  _ stickers off of his satchel and jacket. More than once he threw her a toothy smile, overjoyed at the result. He got out two floors below Alex’s apartment, and before the doors slid shut she caught the whip of a tail below his jacket.  

Hovering outside of Alex’s door, she knew that no matter what had happened between them or what limbo their relationship had entered since Europe, she would always run to Alex’s side when she was needed. 

She knocked. From inside she heard: “Who is it?” 

“It’s me.”

A pause, and then, “It’s open.”

Carefully she inched inside. She was hit by the sensory implosion of being back in this apartment. It had been months, and things had moved around, but it still smelled of the same three favourite scented candles that Alex rotated so regularly they had become their own unique blend.  

While the top jacket was off, Alex still had her suit trousers on. A black cotton shirt was rolled up at the sleeves. She prowled back and forth across the floor, not even looking up at her visitor. 

“Hey,” Maggie said, closing the door behind her with a soft click, “I heard.”

Maggie flinched as Alex threw her phone down onto the island, where it landed with a clatter. “I have just had a thirty minute phonecall with General Buckman, and let me tell you, hot water doesn’t come  _ close _ to describing what I’m in.”

Maggie saw the clenched teeth and trembling hands, but still she strayed closer.  

“Not only is she my sister, but she’s Supergirl,” Alex snarled, pacing the floor. Her eyes were wild and white, as if she was trying to desperately convince the ornaments and picture frames of the depth of Kara’s betrayal. “I assured Mrs Walker and the rest of them that neither of those things would be a liability, and that neither of those things would affect my ability to perform this job.” 

Maggie reached the island. Alex’s phone was cracked at the side from the force of her throwing it down, and she traced a fingertip along the where the sleek paint had been chipped. Alex let out a rush of breath, swinging around towards her. 

“But I was wrong,” she said lowly, “I was so wrong.”

All at once, Maggie realised that she had come to the lair of a beast with a thorn in its paw. Alex’s chest heaved, the untapped rage simmering beneath the surface. 

“I can’t get in touch with Kara, or J’onn, and tomorrow is gonna be hell and I just-”

At the break in Alex’s voice, Maggie knew that she had willingly come here in the full knowledge that this apartment, this woman, used to be her home. Returning should have been painful, and perhaps buried underneath the assaulting, urgent tension there was pain there. 

But right here and now, she was ready to surrender to the jaws of this particular animal. 

She stepped forward. “Well, I’m here if you wanna talk.”

Alex swallowed, advanced a step, and then another. “I really feel like there’s no one on my side right now.”

“I’m always on your side, Alex.”

“But you believed it.” Alex’s hands twitched as the insistent fell out. “Even for a moment, you believed I was capable-”

“I believed that the DEO was capable.”

“But-”

“I believed the DEO was capable. And with how you handled alien threats in the past, sure I could have believed you were capable,” Maggie reiterated. They were mere feet apart, now. “But not when you told me that you didn’t.”

Alex dropped her head forward, picking incessantly at the roll of her sleeve. That brazen confidence that her anger had brought receded, and Maggie saw the coming trials and tribulations crashing down upon her.  

“I trust you, Alex,” she said, chancing another pace or two, “I trusted you when you said you didn’t and I trust you now.”

Alex wet her lips, hand curling around her bicep. “I feel so…”

“I’m always on your side,” Maggie said again. Alex’s eye lifted from the floor, and she held it, hoping that this time she would be believed.   

With a hot plume of smoke in her stomach and full awareness of what she was doing, Maggie reached out and caught Alex’s fingers, unfurling them from her bicep and squeezing them. 

Alex mouth opened and closed, her brow furrowing, but all she managed was, “Thank you.”

Maggie saw the pearly white teeth opening up, and she lay down in its jaws without a fight. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?” Alex rasped, eyes falling to Maggie’s lips. 

Maggie let go of Alex’s hand. For show, she unclipped her badge, and dropped it over the side of the couch. Then she did the same with her gun. Recognition sparked in Alex’s eyes, and once that connection was made.

“Nothing makes sense.”

“Well, right now, it doesn’t have to.”

Maggie barely had her reply out before Alex’s lips descended on hers. 

From dawn until dusk, and further into the evening, nothing had made sense for Maggie. And paradoxically, everything had finally made sense after weeks of unanswered questions. From the discovery of Tom in holding right up until the news of Kara publishing an article against the organisation that her sister was in charge of, layers of baffling information pressed down on her mind, needing to be processed. 

But as her upper back hit the wall by the bathroom and hands pressed into the curve of her spine, her brain lost the dozen trains of thought it had been carrying on through the day in favour of pure need. 

Processing could be done in the morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what the craic is x


	7. 4x07

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things that go up...must come down.

Maggie awoke to the dying crackles of the fire. 

Somehow, it had burned long into the small hours, keeping sentry over them as they lost themselves in each other. During the night Alex must have gotten up to turn off all the lights in the apartment. Despite the dimness, she could still make out Alex’s sleeping profile. 

Sprawled on her stomach, her breathing was steady and deep. It was a sight that always contented Maggie, who spent many nights fretting that her girlfriend was tossing around, or not sleeping through the night. In the most bitter depths of loneliness, she had once remarked to her empty new bedroom that that had been time wasted. Now she wasn’t sure if that was still the case.  

She wasn’t sure how long she watched, but eventually Alex stirred, the pattern of her breathing disrupted. Her eyelids flickered, and then one eye cracked open. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Maggie joked, raspy from sleep. 

Still squinting but more alert, Alex said, “You stayed.”

“Of course.”

Heaving up on an elbow, Alex rubbed at her eyes. “Last night…”

Maggie thought it best to kept it simple. “You needed me.”

Alex dropped her hand, hazy eyes suddenly focusing through the darkness. “And you?”

With a twitch of a hollow smile, Maggie said, “I wanted you.”

As was custom when they were on the cusp of a real conversation, her phone vibrated somewhere by the bed. She slithered out of the covers and patted along the shadows of the wooden floor. She eventually located the fabric of her pants, and then her phone, and blinded herself with the screen. 

Finally adjusting, she read the begging message from a fellow detective and huffed. She rose to her feet, stretching out her stiff muscles as she did. “I don’t start for another two hours but apparently night shift wanna go early.” 

Alex’s opaque outline sat up. She shuffled back towards the headboard, but didn’t move to turn on the lamp. 

“You can shower if you want,” she offered. 

“Don’t have time. I’ll go to the scene and then go home.” Maggie used the ever present tie around her wrist to pull her hair back into a tight ponytail, and then went back to searching for her clothes. Pants and shirt were easily found, the jacket was somewhere by the couch she was sure. While she considered her bra a victory, the other necessities were hidden in the darkness. Since neither of them seemed keen to literally shed light in the aftermath of what they had done, she marked them away as lost causes.   

“I’m stealing socks,” she said.

“Steal what you want.”

Alex sounded tired. It was the tone of voice she used when her mother, or a mission, or a silly fight over laundry had sapped at her strength. Maggie tiptoed to the drawer and took out a pair of boxers, slipping them on. 

“I found Colkirk, by the way,” she said, flapping out her pants and pulling them on, “He’s head of a company called Airedale Consulta.”

“Never heard of them.”

That flat tone persisted, but Maggie didn’t want a return to those days in Europe. She didn’t want the distance or the heartache that caused the daily rift. She pushed on, continuing to dress. 

“They did the marketing for the Cross campaign, but they also used metadata to push anti-alien propaganda onto people’s phones and laptops.”

The mood changed instantly. Alex’s shadowy figure perked up. “Oh my god, it makes sense now.” 

“What does?”

“If Lillian is working with Colkirk, he knows Kara is Supergirl.”

“Which meant he could target Kara with all the information.” It dawned on her like the slow rise of the morning sun. “He manipulated her into following the fake breadcrumbs.”

“She was set up from the beginning,” Alex surmised. 

She was back to sounding tired, and Maggie didn’t blame her. She always beat herself up when she couldn’t protect Kara. While that usually meant from violent threats, the fact she couldn’t guard her little sister from the sway of naivety was no less a kick in the teeth. 

“What do you think his new endgame is now?” Alex asked. “Cross lost the election.”

“I’m swinging by Tom’s hotel this afternoon. I’m gonna pick his brains, try and get a better handle on his brother.” Maggie smoothed down her shirt and checked her belt. “Right now Colkirk’s striking me as the rich, spoiled brat who’s gonna throw a tantrum because he didn’t get his way.”

“Who’s Tom?”

“Oh it’s-” Maggie waved her hands. “It’s a whole thing, long story. I’ll tell you later.”

“Yeah, um…” Alex scratched the back of her head, suddenly sheepish. “Do you maybe want to, I mean you don’t have to- but uh, maybe, dinner, later?”

Alex was putting herself out there on a limb once again. Maggie admired those tokens of courage she handed over. On a weaker morning, she might have said yes. Or she might have told the other detective not to be so lazy and crawled back into bed just to spend another hour or so pretending that she and Alex were just two women in love without the complications of life and circumstances.

Still, there was a good reason why she did neither of these things.  

“Can’t. I agreed to volunteer dishing out at  _ the Arches _ tonight.” At the mention of the shelter, Alex tried to mask her disappointment. Maggie straightened, wandering towards the bed, and decided to offer a token back. “You know, you could come help too. If you aren’t snowed under that is.”

Once or twice during the course of their relationship, Maggie had given her a rousing speech about giving back to the community to which she now belonged. Alex had been privileged in a way that Maggie hadn’t, and in a way that other kids like her weren’t. They had even planned to represent the charity in a half-marathon, usurped by their separation.   

“I’d like that,” Alex said. 

That earnest attitude that Alex had always drew her in. Now, it pulled her down to sit on the edge of the bed. Uncertainty flickered over Alex’s figure in the dark but she didn’t pull away when Maggie brushed her knuckles against the flat of her cheek. 

“I love you,” Maggie whispered. 

Alex brightened, mouth opening to reply. But Maggie cut her off, putting her finger over her lips..

“No, don’t- just-” She shrugged, wanting the statement to stand on its own. “I still do. I love you.” 

Maggie couldn’t see more than the fuzzy, static shape of Alex’s face, but she felt the curl of her lips into a smile against her finger. 

“Call me later?” Alex murmured.

“The minute that I get back to my apartment.”

The promise lingered, and then her phone buzzed again. She took her leave, but not without kissing Alex one last time, as tenderly as she could, on her forehead.  

~

Lena watched him sleep. 

He was sprawled on his stomach, exposing the flesh between his relaxed shoulder blades. She could plunge a knife deep into his heart from here, with the right blade and momentum. She imagined the whites of his eyes as they flew open, the agony and shock tearing any sound from his lungs. 

It was tempting, but it wouldn’t be enough. He would be dead, and she wouldn’t be able to manipulate him anymore. She had to find out his endgame first, find out what her mother was up to. Then, she could punish him for thinking she was so easily used. 

Lena carefully left the bed and draped her robe over her shoulders. She had seen right through him from his arrival in National City. He had seemed distraught last night, trying to appeal to her sympathies.Whatever he was after, she let him play his games, because now she had him with his defences down. 

Tiptoeing from the bedroom, she kept an ear out and rifled through his coat, and then his suit jacket, both abandoned on the red chaise lounge. Going through his wallet, she snapped pictures of his cards and IDs and sent them through to Nia. She also found three separate sets of keys and a crumpled napkin, which had a phone number and three words on it. 

She preened at the find. Gold lettering at the corner read the name of her mother’s favourite restaurant. 

“I’ve got you,” she hissed. No doubt those three words were Cadmus passcodes, and that number was a start, something that could lead her to take down her mother once and for all. 

On the coffee table where the two tumblers of half-finished scotch from the night before remained, Andrew Colkirk’s phone screen lit up. She read the notification. 

**_Bradshaw:_ ** _ reviewing A. Danvers surveillance from last night and this morning. found something interesting _

Lena glanced at the bedroom door, and then reread the message before the screen faded back to darkness. Cadmus was watching Alex Danvers, whom she was aware recently took up the position of Director of the DEO. She could reach out and warn her, but that could possibly derail her own strategy.

She pursed her lips and tapped the coffee table. She was a patient, meticulous planner. Being the CEO of a major company had taught her not to show her hand too early, and the DEO were unpredictable. If she gave Alex Danvers information, they could move prematurely and set them all back several steps. 

She took a seat at the edge of the chaise longue, the constant city symphony keeping her company. The morning traffic was inescapable, even up in her penthouse apartment. 

She knew there was a possibility that Lillian was using Colkirk Snr’s string of laboratories, but how was Andrew exploiting this? For profits? For political gain? Was that why he had pretended to be so disheartened that Cross had lost? She had pretended too, but she wasn’t fooled. 

Cross may have lost, but people like Andrew Colkirk and Lillian Luthor always had a plan B. 

Her own phone buzzed in her hand, and she answered immediately. “Nia?”

_ “Lena, hey.” _

“You’re up early,” she replied.

_ “Well, I didn’t really sleep. Election night, you know?” _

“What have you found?”

_ “Most things are heavily encrypted, like you said they’d be.” _ Lena made a mental note to call Brianna at LCorp, who she valued as a technical magician.  _ “The cell numbers are pinging in random places.”  _

“Just as I thought.”

_ “There’s more. Messages say he’s surveilling a woman named Alex Danvers. Anything to Kara, by any chance? I know she’s mentioned a sister to me before.” _

The reason Lena had entrusted Nia to the task of hunting out information about Andrew Colkirk’s dealings in National City was that she was always digging further than she was told to. She was clever, and had plenty of initiative to go searching above and beyond what others would have been content to stop at.

Without pausing for a reply, Nia spoke again. 

_ “Also, there’s a Mrs Walker wants to speak to you.” _

“About what?”

_ “She didn’t say.” _

“Get her to contact Jess and schedule-”

_ “Actually, I think it’s urgent. They were calling CatCo all night.”  _

Lena picked up on the heaviness that suddenly weighed the call. “Is it about the election?”

_ “Actually, Kara Danvers and James Olsen published a story and…” _ A pause, and a sigh.  _ “Lena, it’s… getting a lot of heat.” _

Lena pinched the bridge of her nose, cursing herself for ever investing in a news agency. Then she got up and went in search of her tablet. She brought up the CatCo website and read the headline for the top trending article.

“Oh dear God.”

Every word fell like a hammer fall. The article claimed that alien citizens had been murdered. That there had been a government cover up. There was no ambiguity for her on which organisation Kara had written about. 

_ “What do you want me to tell Mrs Walker?” _

“Tell her I’ll be in the office in 30 minutes. Get Jess to send a car around in 20.”

She hung up and took a steadying breath. She had always wondered if Alex planned to ever tell Kara about her job, but she supposed this meant that was now void. 

Because if Kara didn’t know that she had just implicated her sister in a major miscarriage of justice, she was about to find out. 

~

Kara had sat through the election coverage with James in his office. Both of them had pretended to follow each state and statistic, but in reality they were both thinking of the article they had just sent live. 

When she went home, she had switched off her phone, wanting to take the win and go to bed merry. She awoke mere hours later to sirens, and intervened in a number of emergencies before she got back to bed and stole another few winks of sleep. 

She turned on her phone, and it blew up with notifications. She spent breakfast scrawling through them, and then got ready for work. When she put in her earpiece, she heard the frazzle of cut connections, and clenched her jaw.

The grating, mechanical noise flared up a fury in her chest, and she launched out of her window towards the DEO. The city could be in danger at any given moment, and if the decimation of personal relations had spilled over into how Supergirl would work- or would no longer work- with the DEO, then she needed a concrete confirmation. 

When she landed on the DEO balcony, the entire bustling control room hushed into a deathly quiet. Only Brainy trotted forward, trying to meekly intercede. 

“Supergirl. Good morning.”

“Hello Brainy,” she said.

“Could you bring your laptop and your mobile down for scans?”

She opened and closed her mouth. “What?”

He held up his hands. “We just need to go over some of the traffic and cookies, and your internet history for bugs-”

“Supergirl. I’m General Buckman.” A stout man with more badges on his uniform than hair on his head marched forward and stepped around Brainy. “I’m here to supervise.”

Kara looked down as he offered out his hand to shake. It was bold, she knew, to offer out a hand to an alien who could crush every bone from his wrist to his fingertips. It felt too much like a trap. 

Her gaze roamed away from him, around and up over the balconies. She saw the sheer hostility from all of the agents around. They blatantly stared, gazes piercing even her bulletproof skin. 

“You have a lot of nerve showing your face here, today.” 

She swung around to see Alex standing by an offshoot of the main centre. Shadowed by half a dozen agents, she looked nothing short of combative.  

“But since you’re here,” she continued, voice dangerously low, “I’ve got some things to show you.”

She stood aside. Kara stood firm as five stretchers all topped with body bags were paraded out for her. The squeak of wheels and rhythmic tones of the monitors behind her were the only sounds as every eye was trained on Kara’s next reaction.

“These were delivered all the way to our doorstep this morning,” Alex announced, giving a nod to the agents standing by. 

One by one, they unzipped the bags, revealing one of the witnesses of Operation Driftwood. The air caught in Kara’s lungs. There was Mister Amazing, his beanie long gone, revealing thick surgical scars that razed behind his pointed ears. There was Tina, her green skin pale without the pulse of emerald blood in her veins.  

“No,” she whispered. 

“Look closer.” Alex’s sneer cut through the silence of the military base.. 

Kara’s eyes flicked to each other the three bodies, the other three aliens. The victims. Then they met the vitriol that had eclipsed the face of her sister. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No, that can’t be-” Kara shook her head in denial at what she was seeing. “It’s not-” 

“They were hybrids.” 

“But they talked? They communicated- I don’t-”

“Did you only think that enhanced robotics only applied to the savage species?” Alex reached over with a gloved hand and prodded at the surgical scars lacing over Mister Amazing’s scalp. “Of course they would bring AI into their designs. Hell, they could have walking talking Kryptonians if they wanted.”

A purple-covered fingertip wiggled under the surface of the skin, and in one swift pull, the alien’s face came off like a mask. Underneath was a metallic structure resembling a robot.

Alex dangled the flap of skin. “You met them in a cafe managed, you thought, by this guy.”

Horrified at the wires, the silver plates, the skin hanging limp from Alex’s fist; Kara couldn’t speak. Alex was on the warpath, flanked by the leers of agents all around them.  

“Douglas and Foster own that whole building,” Alex said, “We’re investigating them in connection to Cadmus.”

“You never told me!” Kara accused. The shrill tone rang around the atrium like the shattering of glass. She pointed at General Buckman, who seemed stunned at how the situation was unravelling between the Director and Supergirl. “But let me guess, you told your new Washington pals.”

“It was need to know at the time-”

“And I don’t need to know?  _ Supergirl _ doesn’t need to know?” she returned, “You’re just leaving me out, all the time, and then blaming me-”

“You didn’t trust me, so why the hell would I trust you?” 

In the flinch of the agents who knew them the most, she knew that they had heard the unspoken words. How could she not have trusted her own sister?

Buckman stepped forward then, trying to interject. “Now, shall we try and settle this-”

But Alex only had eyes for Kara, and the stare was pure fire: “I thought the last person on Earth who would stab me in the back was you.”

Kara’s phone began to vibrate. When she saw that it was Lena, it was like ice water had been dunked over her head. 

She’d made a huge mistake.

~

The laptop whirred as the surveillance footage played on four times the normal speed. People came and went, traffic ebbed and flowed, all movement erratic and unnatural. 

And then it happened.  

“Stop!” 

The frame freezed on a woman entering the apartment building. Colkirk squinted. “I recognise her, but she isn’t in the other tapes.”

“Maybe she’s a friend or relative of someone in the building?” Bradshaw suggested, leaning back in his chair.

“Or a lover,” Colkirk purred, an idea forming in his mind. “Keep going. See when she leaves.”

Not until the next morning, it seemed, wearing the same clothing as before.

“Freeze it again.”

The woman on the screen  _ was _ familiar. Two pieces clicked into place in his mind, and he was pleasantly surprised. He had been too occupied with the campaign and Lillian Luthor’s orders, he hadn’t had time to concentrate on the mystery of his two missing henchmen, the woman in the warehouse, and how that had led to his brother coming to America. Now he realised that this wasn’t a separate issue at all; it was linked.

“Well,” he appraised, crossing his arms over his chest, “It seems our allusive American woman and the missing briefcase are not coincidences after all.”

“You think she’s the one who took the briefcase?” Bradshaw asked.

“She was in a warehouse in London. I’d left her to be wormed.” Colkirk narrowed his eyes. “Lafferty and Pearson’s last job before they let Philip come to America in their place…”

“Now what?” 

Colkirk clicked his tongue, trying to keep the circuit bright now that the lightbulb was finally switched on. He saw the distinctive shape of a badge and a gun on her hip. “She’s aware of Cadmus, she’s a detective in National City and she’s getting a leg over the DEO director for the area. A number of weeks ago, she took a briefcase containing sensitive information and in the process, managed to get rid of two of my men.” 

“Start digging?”

“Oh yes,” Colkirk sang, patting him on the shoulder.

~

The biometric scanner reminded her of an old transmitter blipping out morse code in undulating rhythms. 

Maggie was almost afraid to touch anything, settling instead for wandering around the lavish hotel room. She had only been to the Liberty once before, back when she was in uniform. An assistant to a visiting dignity had been murdered, and she had canvassed the other rooms for witnesses. 

Tom sat at a desk, one hand bouncing around a laptop keyboard and the other pressed down to a biometric scanner. While everything concerning the company and Colkirk Snr’s estate was still in the air, he had informed Maggie that he still had access to a trove of backdated files. 

“Can you sit down, by any chance?” he said, not taking his eyes off the documents popping up out of the folder on screen, “You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry,” Maggie replied. She took her chances and lowered herself down into a plush armchair. 

“What did you do, sleep with an ex or something?” he joked. At her audible wince, his head whipped around for a second. “What, really?”

Maggie’s chin dropped to her chest, and she slumped further against the armchair. She thought about Alex’s breath washing over her ear as her hand slipped into the front of her jeans and swallowed.

“It happened,” she said. 

“No wonder you legged it last night.”

She snorted, but didn’t disagree. While the scanner continued to glow under Tom’s palm, she noticed that his attention had fallen to a black leaflet. Obviously, he had kept his from the rally. She rose and wandered over, tapping it with her fingertip.

“Just because they say what they say with conviction doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth,” she said, “You know that, right?”

Tom averted his gaze, wiggling the mouse of his laptop. She saw the unease, and wondered how he had slept last night, still reeling from the revelation that not only had the man he had known as a father all his life hadn’t been, but his biological parent was an alien. 

She lifted the leaflet, refreshing herself with its pages. She saw the logos, the messages, the slogans, and felt her stomach sinking with each one. Harrison Cross may have lost the race last night, but the disparity between the candidates’ results was not as big as she had hoped. 

“I supported alien amnesty at the start,” Maggie said, closing the leaflet and reading the campaign rhetoric printed on the front. She tried to shake off the feeling that the political advance of anti-alien action wasn’t going to go away after one failed election. “Some people warned me it was just another way of saying registration. I’m beginning to think they were right.”

Tom blinked up at her. “But aliens  _ are _ dangerous. Shouldn’t we have some kind of system in place to track who’s coming onto the planet?”

Maggie had hiked this mountain countless times, and perhaps the unwillingness to do it again showed, because Tom backtracked before she could speak. 

“I’m not talking about refugees or immigrants. Or aliens fleeing from disasters. But things do end up happening,” he said, shrugging a shoulder, “Otherwise what are the things Supergirl is protecting National City from?” 

At the mention of Supergirl, Maggie subtly adjusted her hold on the leaflet. Past Tom’s head and through the tall hotel window, she could see the CatCo logo. She wondered what kind of morning Kara was having after publishing her article. 

“Here’s the thing,” she began, walking away from him and choosing her words carefully, “Supergirl comes out and saves people from a burning building or natural disaster. And yeah, she kicks the occasional alien’s ass, right?” 

“Yeah.”

“But she’s human passing. She takes off the cape, and slips right back into society.”  

She deliberately made it to mere inches off the window, close enough to peer down the sixteen storeys directly below. Her stomach constricted, recalling how Kara had tackled her out when the hybrid from Snarz attacked. That had only been the fifth floor, and yet it still stole the breath from her lungs as she fell. 

“But you come to Earth when your skin is bright green and covered with scales? No possessions to your name, no contacts on this planet, and you’re supposed to survive in a place dominated by capitalism?” 

Maggie turned and flapped the leaflet around at the hotel room, emphasising the wealth perspiring from the very wallpaper. “You can’t speak the language, if indeed you can even communicate via speech.”

Tom’s gaze trailed up the floral pattern on the wall as if he had never seen a single plant before. “You’re screwed.”

She nodded and began to roll the leaflet in and out of a curl. “Groups of people realised this, that’s why aliens are exploited. A lot of the time, aliens take the offer of guaranteed food and shelter in return for their labour. Then they end up taking the fall for crimes they had no choice but to do.”

She gestured at the window looking out at the National City skyline. “People will always be easily motivated by fear. Freak people out, you can control them. Make them take action. Make them vote for you.” 

“Aliens who are human passing having privilege, and some aliens are victims as well as criminals.” He lowered his eyeline with a quirk of his head. “I think I learned something today.”

The leaflet in her hands again drew her attention. Attitudes like the ones displayed in these pages were probably knifing at him. She wanted to tear it up and throw it out the window, watch the broken pieces flutter down into the city. She wanted to assure him that if he was worried about the mobs coming after him for being half alien, then he needn’t; not only was he human passing, but that fear of hatred shouldn’t paralyse him from living his life in his own skin, no matter what species that was. 

But she didn’t. She watched him stew. She didn’t know him well enough to know if he needed to talk about his issues or if he would shut down. 

She was about to lean a shoulder against the window, but the rush of vertigo at the drop made her think better of it. The scanner let out a series of louder beeps, and then was silent. The light switched off. 

“Done,” he announced, shaking out his wrist from holding it in one place for so long. 

“What are your plans now?”

“Call my mum and hope she scolds Andy?” They laughed as he spun his chair to face her. “Honestly, I’m not sure. There’s so much…” 

He clicked the folder closed, shut down the laptop, and closed the lid. Then he dropped his hands between his knees and frowned. 

“I’m thinking I could go home and immobilise him legally or financially. Everything in the estate is in the air because although he controls the company and its assets, there’s enough paperwork that says I deserve a slice of the pie.”

She nodded, taking him in. No matter what he did, he would not go back across the ocean the same man. “What if you stayed here?”

“Maybe. It’s been kind of crazy, but from when I’ve seen, I like it.” He unclicked the drive from his laptop and slid it over in her direction. “Besides, something tells me I’m going to be needed here.” 

“And you know, if you get your brother out of the picture, you can make a grab for the whole company,” she said, moving to pick up the drive and slip it into her jacket, “Some real  _ Game of Thrones _ business.”

She trusted the boyish smile that appeared on his face, and hoped that she wasn’t about to get stabbed in the back. 

~

Even if she didn’t have super-hearing, Kara was sure she could pick up everything said under people’s breath in the newsroom. Every eye followed her as she roamed towards the office. 

She had never screwed up like this. She had always had the drive to prove herself; hard work was a core ethic of both her house on Krypton and of the Danvers. And now, not only to bring shame upon herself but upon the company she worked for, in such a public arena, she knew that the consequences she was about to face were larger than any she had before in her professional career. 

Lena was ghostly pale against the furnishings of Cat’s offices. Suddenly, those subtle touches and changes were stark and the office was much colder than Kara ever remembers. Her gaze was piercing as she loomed behind the desk, and unnerved Kara to the point where she tried to jump in first. 

“Lena-”

“Sit down.” 

Rather than fight it, Kara obeyed. She sat down in a chair opposite the desk. She had sat here years ago, handing Cat her resume and bouncing with enthusiasm, practically begging to be hired. And now her career as a reporter had gone up in smoke, all because she had been too quick, too eager to drop everything she knew and believe a good story. 

Lena remained standing, steepling her fingers on the desk. “I’ve already spoken with James.”

“Lena-”

“And I have spoken with the director of the DEO,”  Lena interrupted. Kara's stomach plummeted. “You understand that this story is false.” 

Still, Kara tried to derail the course of what she knew was coming. 

“Lena-” 

“Did you know it was false before you published it?”

“Just let me-”

“Did you know it was false before you published it?” Lena repeated, each word harder than the last. 

Kara bowed her head. “No.”

“I’ve had to make a public retraction on your behalf.”

Lena rolled out the chair and finally sat. The wheels squeaked, and Kara couldn't even cringe, the grip of dread tightening around her throat.

“A full investigation into how this story was discovered and published will be undertaken. In the meantime…”

Lena dipped her chin, her composure faltering. She clasped her hands together, and Kara could practically hear the shreds of their relationship being torn from a strong friendship to something barely even professional.

“I would have demoted you, except I’ve seen your record and it shows you’ve been fired before. As it is, I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend your contract.”

The knot in Kara's stomach unravelled all at once, and she was empty. A wind tunnel, the icy chill of shock whooshing through her very ribcage.

“I'm...fired?”

“Your contract is suspended,” Lena said.

Kara stood abruptly, every bone shaking. “I'm as good as.”

She didn't bother to wait for the rest. The humiliation was already enough. She skipped boxing up her desk, because the hushed whispers and sneers she received from her colleagues was too much.

By the time she had flown across the city, tears were coming thick and fast down her cheeks. She reached the cafe where she and James had held those discussions with the supposed victims.

The cafe was now vacant, its windows washed in white paint. Pinned up was a sign:  _ Douglas & Foster- To Rent _ .

She collapsed onto a bench. Her phone was whistling with twitter notifications every few seconds. No doubt questions and jibes were coming in thick and fast.

Journalism was the only thing she had wanted to do on Earth, career wise. Partly because she loved the real life aspect of it, and partially to follow in Clark's footsteps. She had worked twice as hard as her peers in college to be able to write fluently and eloquently in a language that wasn't her native tongue. She had taken every piece of advice, criticism and feedback and stored it inside so that she could keep moving forward.

In a single article, it was over.

~

With her gaze fixed on her boots, she almost ran straight into the person lingering in the hallway outside of her apartment. As it was, she came to an abrupt stop, and her visitor straightened. 

For a few seconds, Alex watched the way her mother played with the frayed edges of her handwoven bag. For that fraction of time, she was relieved to see Eliza. She was ready to dive straight into her mother’s arms like a child and hide her face in her apron. 

And then old resentments bubbled up, and she remembered it had been a long time since she had had access to that sanctuary of comfort. A long time since she was a child. 

Alex dug her keys out and jammed them into her front door.  “Come to wipe up Kara’s spilt milk?” 

Eliza gave her space as she fumbled with the lock. “No, actually. I came to see how you’re doing.”

Alex scoffed and stalked inside, but left the door wide open for her mother to follow her in. She shook her jacket off of her shoulders, staring at the bottle of bourbon unopened on the table. She had been ready to tear into it when the knock came last night. 

Her shoulders dropped, the jacket slipping limply around her elbows.  _ Maggie. _

Behind her, Eliza shuffled to the couch, putting down the handwoven bag. “It doesn’t take a lot to figure out that the article was about the DEO,” she said. 

Alex wrestled her jacket off and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t really wanna talk about it.” 

“I read the article.” Eliza paused. “And the retraction-” 

“I said I didn’t wanna talk about it.”

She made for the bourbon, but thought better of it and diverted to the fridge. She grabbed some orange juice and held it up in question. At Eliza’s nod, she grunted and went to retrieve two glasses. As she poured, she noted her mother’s silence. Clearly she had learned to take a backseat when Alex was on an emotional rampage.

Alex pushed the glass in Eliza’s direction, and she came to get it, wrapping it up in a delicate touch. Her focus latched onto her mother’s engagement and wedding rings, and again last night swirled back around in her mind. The heat of Maggie’s touch, of her mouth, the sounds that she made. How she had warmed Alex’s bed sheets once again. 

And then there was the call, and seeing Kara, and the humiliation of Buckman supervising her- 

“She made me look so…” Immediately, she clamped her jaw shut.

“Look so…?”

Where she expected to find judgement, she saw only tenderness in Eliza’s expression. Alex drank her orange juice, and poured more. Part of her was glad her mother was here to pivot her through the impending family crisis, and part of her was chagrined that she wasn’t able to be halfway through the bourbon already.  

“Do you know what those Washington guys are like, Mom?” she asked. 

“Oh Alex,” Eliza said. It had less of the disappointment it usually carried, but the melancholy struck at Alex’s heart regardless. “She probably-” 

“Don’t defend her.” She flattened her palms onto the island. “I told her at every step that she was being fed false leads, that as soon as she humiliated CatCo and discredited herself as a reporter those sources would mysteriously disappear. But she didn’t listen.” 

Eliza tucked her head down, but the cork had been loosened that soon it was all spilling out around them. 

“General Buckman is overseeing the DEO for a number of days while this gets… fixed. There’ll be a tribunal. I’ll have to go to Washington.” 

Her orange juice splashed at the sides of the glass as she took an unsteady swig. She remembered what Maggie had said about Airedale Consulta. 

“She was set up from the beginning. We didn’t catch the link fast enough, and now the President is deciding whether or not she has to go truly public about the DEO and its past.”

She stared down into her drink, willing herself to shut up and stop, but she was like a train barrelling downhill. 

“All I wanted to do was make J’onn proud of me. And now, not only has Kara screwed up my career, she’s screwed up his legacy too.” The train began to derail. “Thousands of missions could be declassified. Mistakes could be made public.” 

“Mistakes?” Eliza asked.

Alex took a deep breath, willing the spikes of dread, humiliation and fear to unstick from her throat. “Driftwood wasn’t real, but tons of things were. J’onn was pretending to be Hank Henshaw for years. What about when the really old truths are uncovered? Things I don’t even know about.”

Eliza nodded, choosing her interval carefully before she asked: “There’s something worse, isn’t there?”

“Cadmus’ origins could come out.” The spikes sunk deeper, and she visibly trembled. “I can’t sit there and answer questions about my dad. You know how that’s gonna look.”

Eliza nodded again, studying her own glass of orange juice. She sipped, and then again, and then set the glass back on the island. “Have you spoken to Kara?”

Alex hissed a breath through her teeth, the tension defusing much too rapidly and the vacuum inside being filled with something else entirely. Of course when she finally opened up to her mother, Kara would still be the centre of attention. 

“She got herself into this mess, she can get herself out of it.” 

Eliza made to speak again, but grew thoughtful. She left the island and walked away. Alex’s laundry basket was resting on a dining chair, and she examined it as if it were a new ornament. Alex watched her thoughtful pace, as if she were in the lab and moving through a scientific process. 

Eventually, she turned back. “You know, I think it would be wiser to open the bourbon.”

“Oh,” Alex said, the feet swept from under her, “Well, I didn’t-”

“Your father hates bourbon. Hated it.” Eliza returned to the island to swish the remainder of her orange juice. “Papa had a taste for it.”

“Grandpa liked bourbon?”

Eliza smiled at the surprise in her voice. “He bought me a beautiful bottle in celebration of my wedding.” She paused to finish her juice, and then casually said, “Alcohol is a great wedding present.”

And just like that, Alex knew she was angling. She could taste the bitter tequila kisses that she and Maggie had shared on that last day, could taste the scotch on Maggie’s tongue from last night. 

“How does Maggie feel about all this?” Eliza asked.

If embarrassment hadn’t flamed its way up her cheeks, Alex would have been impressed with the shark attack her mother had just employed. 

“About Driftwood? If there’s anyone who knows the community in National City, it’s Maggie. She would have known about this.” 

Alex itched for the bourbon on the dining table now, but she held firm. She waited for her mother’s next move. 

“She slept here recently, didn’t she?” 

Alex sighed. “How do you-” 

“Because I recognise the pattern of the socks in the laundry from the last time she stayed in Midvale.” 

With a frown, Alex looked at the basket, and then at Eliza. “Are you a scientist or a detective?” 

“I’m a mother,” was the pointed reply. Then Eliza smiled again. “Also you haven’t really made any effort to cover up the abrasion on your neck.” 

She forgot all day because the stiff collar of her suit hid it, and Alex palmed her neck. “Concealer wore off.”

“Would you like me to open this?” Eliza asked, motioning towards the bourbon. “You look like you could use it, sweetie.”

Alex was tempted. But then she remembered Maggie reaching through the darkness, turning down her offer of dinner but countering with an ask to help volunteer. Alex knew that inviting her to  _ the Arches _ wasn’t just about her finally paying her dues to her community, but was also Maggie inviting her back into something that existed so close to her heart. 

It was a duty, but between them it was symbolic. 

“Actually, I have plans.”

Eliza had reached the bourbon, but she waved at the socks. “Ah.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “And you should go be with Kara. She needs someone right now.”

She saw the sad eyes her mother gave, that person should be her, but Kara had made her decision. She had drawn lines in the sand, and just because the tide had washed them away didn’t mean that Alex forgot she had drawn them in the first place. 

She wasn’t going to forget for a while. 

~

The retraction was painful. 

She and Kara had never been the closest of friends, but Maggie knew what professional embarrassment was like, and this was sure to cause pure humiliation. While she wasn’t a journalist, she imagined that having the news agency apologise on behalf of you was a reporter’s nightmare. 

She skimmed the statement again as she jimmied her key into the door, shouldering it open. She had an unread text from James asking if she was around. While she appreciated the guy and the friendship that they had rekindled over the past few weeks, she wanted to stay clear of this entire situation. Not least because that could be seen as taking sides. 

Though sleeping with the head of the falsely accused organisation could also be seen as taking sides. 

She deflated down onto her couch as a text came through from Diane, who volunteered at _the Arches_.  

_ You coming tonight, cop? _

She smirked, replying quickly. Then she chucked her phone down onto the coffee table. She propped her elbows and stared down at the chessboard. 

The ornate chessboard was the first gift she had ever bought herself when she travelled. Each piece was handcrafted, placed onto a carefully stained wooden checkerboard. She examined them closely, and felt a ping in her gut like a coin hitting the bottom of a deep well. She leaned forward, discomfort pricking at her temples. 

The last time she had set up the pieces they had been ready for a game. Now, as she contemplated the board, she saw that the black pieces had the white in checkmate. 

She registered a perversion of her space. She broke out in goose pimples. She reached for the gun at her hip-

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Before she could even react to the cool warning, pain pricked at her neck and radiated up around her skull. She grabbed at the hand, scratching at it, but the needle was already being drawn away. 

She lunged up off the couch, but her apartment tipped and she stumbled against the coffee table, scattering the chess pieces and falling to the floor. She turned onto her back, vision swimming, and saw Colkirk emerging from behind the couch.  

He leaned down and plucked something from the floor. Maggie saw that her badge had fallen out. 

“Glad to finally track you down, Detective Sawyer. We're going to have a look around, if you don't mind.”

Maggie clawed weakly at her gun, but her hands lost all strength, and soon all power was sapped out of her limbs. Then, there was nothing at all. 

~

Alex stared up at the sign for  _ The Arches _ for longer than she would admit. The red brick building had seen better days. It needed a lick or two of paint, and the tiny rainbow flags were tattered, but fluttered bravely in the breeze. 

She finally went inside, and was bowled over by the warmth of the atmosphere inside. Laughter rang out around the hall which echoed with the scrapes of cutlery and food being served. Against one wall were a team dishing out soup and stew from huge stainless steel pots, while bread and refreshments were being served at another. 

She drank in the sights and sounds of people enjoying a hot meal with company, the happiness of those around her, and felt ashamed of her preconceived notion that she should feel pitied into coming here.  

She searched through the sea of faces for the one that held her heart in a headlock, but found none. She scoured and scoured, pacing this way and that, but she couldn’t see Maggie. 

A woman with straw-blonde hair breezed past with an armful of folded tea towels, and Alex dashed after her. The woman deposited the tea towels on a table beside the swing door into the kitchen area, and Alex took her opportunity.

“Excuse me, have you seen Maggie Sawyer tonight?” she asked. The woman looked up and seemed to stare straight through her, although Alex couldn’t be sure because her glasses were filthy. “She said she was coming to-”

“Oh!” the woman interrupted, as if she only noticed that Alex was talking to her halfway through the inquiry. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I was looking for Maggie,” Alex clarified. “Detective Sawyer?”

“Oh, we haven’t seen Detective Sawyer tonight, which is very strange.” The woman pushed her grubby glasses further up her nose, muttering  _ very strange  _ over and over as she inched around in a slow circle, trying to search out Maggie.

“Thanks,” Alex said, turning away.

She walked the aisle between two long benches, inching up on her tiptoes even with the majority of those around her sitting down. Still, she could see no sign of Maggie. She reached the end of the row and spun, trying to ignore the snag in her gut that something was wrong. 

“Alex, right?”

Alex jerked at the sound of the voice at her ear. A girl no older than sixteen stood beside her, fidgeting with a beanie cap in her fists. 

“Yeah,” Alex said, glancing at the crowd. “I’m Alex.”

“I’ve seen you around with Maggie.” The girl smiled, looking down at her twisting hands. “At the runs.”

“Oh, uh...?”

“Diane.”

“Diane, sorry.” Alex held out her hand, and after a moment of hesitation, the girl shook it. Then, she immediately hid her hand in the material of her beanie again. “Did you see Maggie tonight?”

“She texted me to say she was coming but…” Diane rubbed her bicep, looking around. “She hasn’t showed up. She isn’t usually late so...”

Alex caught the implications. “She could be working a case,” she reassured.

“Right,” Diane said with a sharp nod, “Yeah, probably just a case.”

Suddenly, the snag felt justified. 

Alex left a simple voicemail as she trotted down the steps at the front of _the Arches_ , telling Maggie to call her or let her know if she got caught up in a case. Yet as she straddled her bike, she knew this wasn’t simply work related.

She left a second message at the bottom of Maggie’s new apartment building, getting it up from the old text about the passport. She hesitated, not wanting to overstep given the circumstances of last night and the progress they had made in the messy tangle of their work-personal relationship. 

Still, there was a panic pulsing in the back of her mind, and she charged into the building. 

Maggie’s apartment door was open just a crack, the inside of the apartment was dark. With a twist of panic, Alex reached for the gun in the back of her waistband, and then inched into the apartment. 

Something crunched under her boots. She stopped, and kept very still. She reached into her pocket for her phone, and dialled Maggie's number. A mobile lit up and vibrated on the coffee table, making itself known. In its glow, she saw the silhouettes of a toppled chess game, pieces littered here and there.

Alex clicked on her phone torch and swept it in a broad arc. Cupboards lay open, drawers were upturned. The place was trashed, and Maggie was nowhere to be found.

The panic crescendoed as reality set it.

Maggie was missing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shout out to ironicpotential, whose head is gonna be melted by my hundreds of queries on a daily basis about this fic.


End file.
